The purpose of this study was to examine preservice science teachers’ experiences with repeated scientific inquiry (SI) activities. The National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) stress students should understand and possess the abilities to do SI. For students to meet these standards, science teachers must understand and be able to perform SI; however, previous research demonstrated that many teachers have naïve understandings in this area. Teacher preparation programs provide an opportunity to facilitate the development of inquiry understandings and abilities. In this study, preservice science teachers had experiences with two inquiry activities that were repeated three times each. The research questions for this study were (a) How do preservice science teachers’ describe their experiences with repeated, guided inquiry activities? (b) What are preservice science teachers’ understandings and abilities of SI? This study was conducted at a large, urban university in the southeastern United States. The 5 participants had bachelor’s degrees in science and were enrolled in a graduate science education methods course. The researcher was one of the course instructors but did not lead the activities. Case study methodology was used. Data was collected from a demographic survey, an open-ended questionnaire with follow-up interviews, the researcher’s observations, participants’ lab notes, personal interviews, and participants’ journals. Data were coded and analyzed through chronological data matrices to identify patterns in participants’ experiences. The five domains identified in this study were understandings of SI, abilities to conduct SI, personal feelings about the experience, science content knowledge, and classroom implications. Through analysis of themes identified within each domain, the four conclusions made about these preservice teachers’ experiences with SI were that the experience increased their abilities to conduct inquiry, increased their understanding of how they might use SI in their classroom, increased their understanding of why variables are used in experiments, and did not increase their physics content knowledge. These conclusions suggest that preservice science teachers having repeated, guided experiences with inquiry increase their abilities to conduct SI and consider how inquiry could be used in their future science classrooms.

Assisting young people in becoming resilient is the topic of much research in the education community. My research utilised the life stories of four participants and sought to understand their experiences in their attainment of resiliency. Their personal accounts offered a unique perspective. Attachment Theory, Locus of Control Theory and Self-Efficacy Theory has much to offer the topic of resiliency and support the findings of my study. Results indicate that each of the participants had secure attachments, an internal locus of control and a strong personal self-efficacy. Optimism and hardiness were evident as each participant spoke about the process of attaining resiliency. Insights as to how educators can utilise the findings of this research and promote resilience were also addressed.

Thesis (LL. M.)--Judge Advocate General's School, United States Army, 2003. / "April 2003." Computer-produced typeface. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in microfiche.

Thesis (LL. M.)--Judge Advocate General's School, U.S. Army, 1967. / "April 1967." Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [63]-[65]). Also issued in microfiche.

Thesis (LL. M.)--Judge Advocate General's School, United States Army, 1979. / "May 1979." Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in microfiche.

Thesis (LL. M.)--Judge Advocate General's School, U.S. Army, 1966. / "April 1966." Typescript. Includes bibliographical references. Also issued in microfiche.

Thesis (M.I.T.)--The Evergreen State College, 2007. / Title from title screen viewed (6/25/2008). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 102-107).

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Duquesne University, 2004. / Title from document title page. Abstract included in electronic submission form. Includes bibliographical references (p. 125-131) and abstract.

Thesis (M. Com.)--University of Canterbury, 2009. / Typescript (photocopy). Includes bibliographical references (p. 117-121). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Whitewater, 2005. / Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 42-47). Also available via the Internet (PDF format).