PRE-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PREDICTIONS ON STUDENT LEARNING DIFFICULTIES IN THE DOMAIN OF MECHANICS

TitlePRE-SERVICE SCIENCE TEACHERS’ PREDICTIONS ON STUDENT LEARNING DIFFICULTIES IN THE DOMAIN OF MECHANICS
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2018
AuthorsZhou, S-N, Xiao, H
JournalJournal of Baltic Science Education
Volume17
Issue4
Start Page649-661
PaginationContinuous
Date PublishedAugust/2018
Type of ArticleOriginal article
ISSN1648-3898
Other NumbersE-ISSN 2538-7138
Keywordsmechanics domain, pre-service science teachers’ predictions, student learning difficulties, students` knowledge
Abstract

The ability to predict students’ ideas or performances is commonly recognized as an indicator to measure teachers’ knowledge of student learning difficulties. This research focuses on identifying pre-service science teachers’ knowledge of student learning difficulties on Mechanics, as well as comparing pre-service science teachers’ predictions to student reasoning on the causes of their learning difficulties. The populations consist of 479 pre-service science teachers and 1,020 students taking physics as a separate science course. Two versions of the questionnaires are designed, with teacher- and student- oriented questions separately. From the results, inconsistencies are observed between two groups of populations. Pre-service science teachers either over- or under-predict student learning difficulties in some special domains. The results show that the physics content knowledge factor attracts great attention from both students and pre-service science teachers as the cause of student learning difficulties. The research results are important for pre-service science teachers to realize the gap between their own perspectives and students’ actual learning difficulties.

URLhttp://oaji.net/articles/2017/987-1533709007.pdf
DOI10.33225/jbse/18.17.649
Refereed DesignationRefereed
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