Science teachers’ professional competencies related to scientific reasoning in the transition phase from pre-service to practicing teachers

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Moritz Krell
• Subject Area: General and Domain-Specific Teaching and Learning
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 491747030

Scientific reasoning competencies (SRC) are defined as the abilities needed for scientific problem solving and reflecting on this process at a meta-level. Globally, SRC have been identified as an outcome of good science education and as an element of science teachers’ subject-specific professional competencies. Studies indicate that teachers’ professional competencies determine their teaching practice and student learning; most available studies focus either on pre-service teachers or on early career teachers in their first few months at school, but rarely on both groups concurrently. However, it was shown that the transition from university education to work life is challenging for teachers and that teachers’ professional competencies develop over this time period through teaching experience and reflection. Hence, studies on how teachers’ professional competencies further develop once they have left university and how these competencies impact their teaching practice and student learning are crucial but widely missing. This study investigates the relationships between science teachers’ SRC, the quality of their lesson planning and teaching practice, and their students’ SRC. Important variables of teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge about SRC and their self-efficacy in teaching scientific reasoning will be considered, too. The study focuses on the transition phase from pre-service to practicing teachers within three cohorts of German science teachers (N≈120). Cohort I includes pre-service science teachers within the master’s program, where they experience teaching responsibility for the first time in the practical semester. Cohort II includes pre-service science teachers at the end of the master’s program until the first year of the induction phase at school and Cohort III includes pre-service science teachers in the induction phase until the beginning of their work life as in-service teachers. Established assessment instruments will be used and three points of data collection are planned in each cohort (longitudinal study). For data analysis, latent growth curve and hierarchical linear models will be applied next to classical statistical analyses, in order to model the development of the respective variables and to account for the nested data structure of the teachers’ students. This study will improve our understanding of how the competencies developed at university are further developed within the first months and years of teaching at school, and how they impact teaching practices and student learning.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Australia
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Merryn Dawborn-Gundlach; Professor Dr. Jan Van Driel