skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


  • NSF Public Access
  • Search Results
  • Examining elementary science teachers' responses to assessments tasks designed to measure their content knowledge for teaching about matter and its interactions
Title: Examining elementary science teachers' responses to assessments tasks designed to measure their content knowledge for teaching about matter and its interactions
Abstract Despite the importance of developing elementary science teachers' content knowledge for teaching (CKT), there are limited assessments that have been designed to measure the full breadth of their CKT at scale. Our overall research project addressed this gap by developing an online assessment to measure elementary preservice teachers' CKT about matter and its interactions. This study, which was part of our larger project, reports on findings from one component of the item development process examining the construct validity of 118 different CKT about matter assessment items. In this study, 86 elementary teachers participated in cognitive interviews to examine: (a) the knowledge and reasoning they used when responding to these CKT about matter assessment items and (b) the nature of the content challenges and the content teaching challenges they encountered. Findings showed that over 80% of participant interview responses indicated that the CKT about matter items functioned as hypothesized, providing evidence to support future use of these items on a large‐scale assessment and in studies of science teachers' CKT. When responding to the items, participants showed evidence of four main challenges with the science content: (a) using scientific concepts to reason about science tasks, (b) using adequate evidence to reason about science phenomenon, (c) drawing upon examples of scientific phenomena, and (d) drawing upon science vocabulary. Findings also showed that participants experienced challenges regarding the following content teaching aspects when responding to these items: (a) connecting to key scientific concepts involved in the work of teaching science, (b) attending to instructional goal(s), and (c) recognizing features of grade‐level appropriateness. Implications for using CKT items as part of large‐scale science assessment systems and identifying areas to target in elementary science teachers' CKT development are addressed.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1813254
PAR ID:
10545873
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Wiley
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Science Education
Volume:
107
Issue:
3
ISSN:
0036-8326
Page Range / eLocation ID:
572 to 608
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; (, Journal of Research in Science Teaching)
    Abstract There is strong agreement in science teacher education of the importance of teachers' content knowledge for teaching (CKT), which includes their subject matter knowledge and their pedagogical content knowledge. However, there are limited instruments that can be easily administered and scored on a large scale to assess and study elementary science teachers' CKT. Such measures would support strategic monitoring of large groups of science teachers' CKT and the investigation of comparative questions about science teachers' CKT longitudinally across the professional continuum or across teacher education or professional development sites. To address this gap, this study focused on designing an automatically scorable summative assessment that can be used to measure preservice elementary teachers' (PSETs') CKT in one high‐leverage science content area: matter and its interactions. We conducted a field test of this CKT instrument with 822 PSETs from across the United States and used the response data to examine how this instrument functions as a potential tool for measuring PSETs' CKT in this science content area. Results suggest this instrument is reliable and can be used on large scale to support valid inferences about PSETs' CKT in this content area. In addition, the dimensionality analysis showed that all items measure a single construct of CKT about matter and its interactions, as participants did not show any differential performance by content topic or work of teaching science instructional tool categories. Implications for progressing the field's understanding of the nature of CKT and approaches to developing summative instruments to assess science teachers' CKT are discussed. 
    more » « less
  2. ; (, Education Sciences)
    Science teacher knowledge for effective teaching consists of multiple knowledge bases, one of which includes science content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. With the inclusion of science and engineering practices into the national science education standards in the US, teachers’ content knowledge goes beyond subject matter knowledge and into the realm of how scientists use practices for scientific inquiry. This study compares two approaches to constructing and validating two different versions of a survey that aims to measure the construct of teachers’ knowledge of models and modeling in science teaching. In the first version, a 24-item Likert scale survey containing content and pedagogical knowledge items was found to lack the ability to distinguish different knowledge levels for respondents, and validation through factor analysis indicated content and pedagogical knowledge items could not be separated. Findings from the validation results of the first survey influenced revisions to the second version of the survey, a 25-item multiple-choice instrument. The second survey employed a competence model framework for models and modeling for item specifications, and results from exploratory factor analysis revealed this approach to assessing the construct to be more appropriate. Recommendations for teacher assessment of science practices using competence models and points to consider in survey design, including norm-referenced or criterion-referenced tests, are discussed. 
    more » « less
  3. ; (, Repository of the International Society of the Learning Sciences)
    Hoadley, C; Wang, X C (Ed.)
    Supporting children to make, explain, and reason through decisions about how to investigate scientific phenomena allows them to make sense of science content and practices in meaningful ways, positions children as agentic, and enables more equitable and just teaching. Novice teachers may use certain strategies and face unique challenges when engaging in this work. Drawing on written lesson plans, videorecords of lesson enactments, and interviews, this study explores five preservice teachers’ ideas and practices that positioned children as epistemic agents and identifies common tensions they negotiated. Each teacher demonstrated beliefs in children’s brilliance that were related to their practices, such as re-centering children’s ideas, working toward collective understanding, and engaging children in science practices. This study highlights early strengths of these five teachers and raises questions about teacher learning. 
    more » « less
  4. ; ; ; ; ; (, Journal of interdisciplinary teacher leadership)
    This study investigated the influence of immersive classroom simulation activities on the development of elementary pre-service teachers in two separate mathematics and science education courses that simultaneously focus on pedagogy and content. Participants submitted written personal reflections about their teaching experiences using the immersive classroom simulation activities. These reflections were analyzed for common emergent themes within and across courses. The participants discussed the benefits of the immersive classroom simulation activities in their written personal reflections. They viewed the experience as helpful in developing their skills as a practicing teacher in mathematics and science. Specifically, participants identified three sub-themes including: (a) the immersive classroom simulation activities as being beneficial by providing more authentic real-life teaching experiences than those experienced during peer-group teaching activities; (b) the importance of holding complete and appropriate understandings of content when teaching mathematics and science; and (c) the role of deep content knowledge in the process of developing high quality questions for students. This study has shown immersive classroom simulation activities to be a viable alternative for teacher education programs to engage elementary pre- service teachers in developing skills regarding classroom mathematics and science discourse. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; (, IEEE)
    This paper examines the initial beliefs held by elementary educators (n=11) and their students about teaching and learning quantum concepts at the elementary level. All teachers were participants in a grant-funded project focused on developing teachers’ quantum content knowledge and creating curricular resources to use in elementary classrooms. Although elementary teachers had limited knowledge of quantum at the beginning of the project, they expressed excitement and a belief that learning quantum would create future possibilities for their students. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email