PRE-SERVICE BIOLOGY TEACHERS’ REPORTED FEAR AND DISGUST OF ANIMALS AND THEIR WILLINGNESS TO INCORPORATE LIVE ANIMALS INTO THEIR TEACHING THROUGH STUDY YEARS

TitlePRE-SERVICE BIOLOGY TEACHERS’ REPORTED FEAR AND DISGUST OF ANIMALS AND THEIR WILLINGNESS TO INCORPORATE LIVE ANIMALS INTO THEIR TEACHING THROUGH STUDY YEARS
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2017
AuthorsTomažič, I, Pihler, N, Strgar, J
JournalJournal of Baltic Science Education
Volume16
Issue3
Start Page337-349
PaginationContinuous
Date PublishedJune/2017
Type of ArticleOriginal article
ISSN1648-3898
ISBN NumberE-ISSN 2538-7138
Keywordsdisgust of animals, fear of animals, pre-service teachers, students beliefs
Abstract

In this research, the self-reported fear and disgust toward animals of pre-service biology teachers and their willingness to incorporate live animals into their teaching were assessed with a questionnaire. An entire generation of pre-service biology teachers (N = 128) participated in this research. The results show that students are mostly afraid of animals that are potentially dangerous to humans such as large predators and are disgusted mostly by animals that are small and wet looking, like a slug. The students were less willing to incorporate animals that they reported to be most fearful or disgusting into their teaching. Considering that throughout their study years, there was practically no change in students’ levels of fear, disgust and willingness to incorporate live animals into their teaching calls for an improvement of the biology teacher education study programme in order to train teachers that are skilled and willing to use live animals in their teaching. One of the solutions could be offering pre-service teachers as many first-hand experiences with live animals as possible either in a formal learning environment, such as the university or, in case of large animals (predators), in informal learning environments, like a zoo or a national park.

URLhttp://oaji.net/articles/2017/987-1497963955.pdf
DOI10.33225/jbse/17.16.337
Refereed DesignationRefereed
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