Assessing Teaching Opinions of Pre-Service ScienceTeachers

Melton E. GolmonNorthwestern University303 East Chicago AvenueChicago, Illinois 60611

The science curriculum efforts of the last decade have emphasizedthe investigative, the experimental, and the discovery phase of science.This emphasis is appropriate when one considers that science learninginvolves the appreciation of its modes of inquiry (Hurd, 1969). Theinquiry process facilitates learning how the knowledge of science isobtained, its parameters and probabilities, and what it means today.Since 1957, the National Science Foundation has supported a numberof science curriculum projects for improving science courses at thehigh school level (Glass, 1969). These courses were conceived tobe investigative in nature and to involve active participation on thepart of the student.Because of these curriculum developments, it becomes very impor-

tant that today’s science teachers understand the various facets andcomplexities of teaching processes characterized as "inquiry" in orderto implement appropriately the newest curriculum materials. Thepre-service science teacher usually approaches the professional se-quence of education courses with many teaching ideas and opinionsformed as a result of exposure to college science courses. The teachingstrategies employed in these courses do not always coincide withthe methods and techniques designed as a part of the secondarycurriculum projects. As a result, pre-service science teachers expressvarious opinions concerning science teaching based, to a great extent,on the experiences they have had.These opinions, which may have been formed over a long period

of time, become an important factor when planning instructionalactivities for pre-service science teachers and thus require assessment.Several techniques have already been developed to measure teacherattitudes and reactions to various situations. Observational techniques,personal interviews, rating scales, questionnaires, and other schemeshave been used to provide meaningful and useful data. Numerousadvantages and disadvantages can be cited for each of these techniquesand one may be better suited to a given situation than another.

If pretest and posttest as well as control group and experimentalgroup comparisons are to be made for a given program, it is advanta-geous to employ an instrument which lends itself readily to commonstatistical treatments. The Likert-type rating scale is well suited for

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Opinions of Pre-Service Teachers 339

this purpose. It consists of a five-point scale in which the intervalbetween each point on the scale is assumed to be equal. The scaleis used to register the subject’s extent of agreement or disagreementwith a particular statement of an attitude, belief, or judgement. Theperson completing the scale marks one answer category, usually,strongly agree, agree, undecided, disagree, or strongly disagree. Theseresponses are valued 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, respectively, with 5 assigned tothe response which, if marked, would indicate a judgment favorableto the program or situation being assessed. Each statement can thusbe scored and a total score can be derived for the entire scale. Sinceanalysis of data from Likert-type scales are usually based on summatedscores over a number of items, the equal-interval assumption isworkable (Tuckman, 1972). The usual statistical techniques can thenbe applied to these scores.

This paper describes the construction and use of an experimentalinstrument for monitoring science teaching opinions of pre-servicescience teachers.

THE SCIENCE TEACHING OPINION SURVEYThis instrument was initially conceived to provide feedback in-

formation concerning opinions about science teaching expressed bypre-service science teachers enrolled in a science teaching methodscourse at the University of Maryland. Educational literature wassearched to locate specific statements which might indicate an orienta-tion on the part of the teacher as favorable toward teaching strategiesreflected by current curriculum developments. These strategies allowthe student maximum involvement and participation and provide alearning environment in which the student has continuous opportunityto make observations, formulate hypotheses, test hypotheses, analyzedata, and draw conclusions. Thirty-five statements were eventuallygenerated. These thirty-five statements were then presented to 24science supervisors and seven science educators at the college levelfor refinement. In addition, these persons indicated their agreementor disagreement to the statement in reflecting current thinking aboutscience teaching.The total pool of 35 items was then administered to 84 in-service

science teachers in an experimental test. The responses given bythe teachers to each individual item were correlated with the totalscores obtained by the teachers on the entire scale. This item analysisprocedure provides an indication of the degree of agreement or overlapbetween each individual item and the total scale. The purpose ofthis procedure was to identify those statements which best agreewith the scale and will thus yield the greatest degree of internalconsistency. Using this procedure it was possible to identify 20

340School Science and Mathematics

statements showing the greatest amount of agreement with the totalscore. Pearson product-moment correlations for the 20 statementsselected are shown in Table I. The overall mean score for these20 items was 73.50 with a standard deviation of 8.25. The Kuder-Richardson realibility coefficient was calculated to be 0.77 (Ebel,1965). The final version of the instrument is shown at the end ofthis paper.

TABLE I: SUMMARY STATISTICS FOR EXPERIMENTAL TEST

Item

1234567891011121314151617181920

Mean

3.974.182.804.323.702.993.804.494.183.213.293.183.334.384.113.883.252.853.584.02

S.D.

0.860.741.280.701.041.200.950.690.811.191.140.930.920.710.790.841.171.170.910.69

Correlation

0.420.460.430.400.420.480.620.45 Mean == 73.500.420.38 S.D. = 8.250.500.17* K-R Reliability0.43 Coefficient = 0.770.360.580.410.370.370.430.40

*Not significant at 0.05 level, N == 84

In examining the instrument, it will be seen that some of thestatements have been reversed so that the desirable response is notstrongly agree but strongly disagree. These negative statements arescored in reverse with five points assigned to the strongly disagreeresponse. This technique is used so that the person responding tothe instrument will have to give it careful attention.

EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

The instrument was administered to two science teaching methodsclasses at the University of Maryland on a pretest and posttest basisduring the 1972-73 school year. This course is 16 weeks in lengthand students are student-teaching simultaneously. A t-test for related

Opinions of Pre’Service Teachers 341

measures is shown in Table II (Burning and Kintz, 1968). There isa significant difference in the way students respond to the instrumenton a pretest and posttest basis. Since the posttest mean is higher,it indicates that students have moved to a position more in favorof teaching methodologies and strategies present in current secondaryschool curriculum developments. This was a course goal.

TABLE II: PRETEST AND POSTTEST SCORES FOR PRE-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS

Pretest Posttest MeanInstrument N Mean Mean Gain t

Science Teaching 39 72.10 75.97 +3.87 3.86*Opinion Survey

*Significant at the 0.01 level

CONCLUSIONSThis paper has reported the development of a readily usuable survey

instrument for assessing opinions concerning science teaching withpre-service teachers. The results indicate that the instrument showsevidence of being sensitive and reliable. It is inexpensive, requiresa minimum of time to administer, is easy to score, and lends itselfreadily to statistical analysis. It could easily be used with in-serviceteachers participating in workshops, special seminars, and institutes.A similar instrument could be developed for use with the teacher’sstudents in which the student would indicate teaching practices bythe teacher. Correlations between scores of teachers and the scoresof their students could then be made. This would yield informationnot only about opinions concerning science teaching by a teacherbut about teaching practices as well.

REFERENCESBRUNING, JAMES L. and KINTZ, B. L. Computational Handbook of Statistics. Glenview,

Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1968. pp. 12-15.EBEL, ROBERT L. Measuring Educational Achievement. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey:

Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1965. pp. 328-330.GLASS, BENTLY. The Philosophy of a Curriculum Study. BSCS Newsletter, No. 37,

1969. pp. 1-5.HURD, PAUL D. New Directions in Teaching Secondary School Science. Chicago: RandMcNally, 1969.

TUCKMAN, BRUCE W. Conducting Educational Research. New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, Inc., 1972. pp. 156-159.

342 School Science and Mathematics

Science Teaching Opinion SurveyDirections: This inventory consists of 20 statements designed to sample your opinionsconcerning science teaching. Read each statement carefully and decide how you feelabout it. Circle your choice corresponding to the following:

SA: Strongly A: Agree U: Undecided D: Disagree SD: StronglyAgree Disagree

*SA A U D SD 1. Science students should be provided class time for exchang-ing ideas about science among themselves.

SA A U D SD 2. Questions by teachers requiring yes and no responses areparticularly useful in science teaching.

SA A U D SD 3. The science course should be organized so that studentsare told exactly how and what they are expected to do.

*SA A U D SD 4. The laboratory should be the center for instruction in thesciences.

SA A U D SD 5. A serious effort should be made to complete the textbookor course syllabus for a science course.

SA A U D SD 6. Well prepared lectures are efficient and effective for mostscience topics.

SA A U D SD 7. Scientific facts and definitions should provide the core ofa science course.

*SA A U D SD 8. A well stated question by a student is as important as awell stated answer by a student.

*SA A U D SD 9. Science courses should be developed which make use ofmultiple references rather than a single textbook.

SA A U D SD 10. Science teachers should have in mind specific answers toquestions they pose in a teaching situation.

SA A U D SD 11. The laboratory should be used to repeat and verify experi-ments that students have read about.

*SA A U D SD 12. Some time in the science course should be used for examin-ing the original work of scientists in the original format.

*SA A U D SD 13. Major examinations in science courses should be designedto concentrate on knowledge gained from the laboratory.

SA A U D SD 14. For continuity, science courses should be developed toemploy a single teaching strategy or method.

*SA A U D SD 15. Teachers should minimize "telling" and maximize "ques-tioning" in teaching science courses.

*SA A U D SD 16. Laboratory investigations should be used to introduce mostscience topics.

SA A U D SD 17. Science students should be required to learn the steps inthe scientific method at the beginning of the course.

SA A U D SD 18. Laboratory studies should consist of laboratory guidesproviding step-by-step directions.

SA A U D SD 19. Considerable class time should be spent in reviewing materialstudents have been assigned to read.

*SA A U D SD 20. An attempt should be made to carry out laboratory inves-tigations suggested by students even though not originallyplanned for the course.

*Positive Statements, SA = 5, SD = 1