Recent reform efforts in science education have culminated in National Science Education Standards (NSES), which include the nature of science and science inquiry themes across all grade levels. Consideration must be given to pre-service science teachers’ nature of science conceptions and their perceived roles in implementing the nature of science in the science classroom. This qualitative study investigates how pre-service science teachers’ views about the nature of science develop and change when learning a college physics unit on waves in an urban university. The study uses case study methodology with four pre-service science teachers as individual units of analysis. Data regarding the participants’ views about the nature of science were collected before and after the instruction on the physics of waves unit. The research design used ‘The Views of Nature of Science/Views of Scientific Inquiry-Physics Questionnaire’ followed by structured interviews throughout the wave unit. In addition, the participants responded to daily questions that incorporated nature of science themes and constructed concept maps regarding the physics content and their nature of science understanding. After completing the VNOS/VOSI-PHYS questionnaire the pre-service science teachers’ views of the nature of science were found to be mainly naïve and transitional before the instruction. At the end of the wave unit instruction, the data indicated that conceptual change occurred in participants’ nature of science views, shifting toward informed views. The findings of this study provide evidence that using explicit instruction with specific activities, such as experiments and concept mapping, shifted the pre-service science teachers’ views away from naïve and toward informed.

The purpose of this phenomenological case study was to understand how passion is used by participating teachers at Hugo High School and if its use is intentional in the classroom. A qualitative research design was used for this study. The case study was determined to be the most appropriate method for this research because it provided an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of the research topic. This study used Fried’s definition of passion as one who is “in love with a field of knowledge, deeply stirred by issues and ideas that challenge our world, drawn to the dilemmas and potentials of the young people who come into class each day – or captivated by all of these” (Fried, 2001, p. 1). The research data were collected from nine teachers about their use of passion in the classroom. The constant comparative method is an important tool to sort data in the coding process; it was used to take information from the data, compare it to previous data, and sort it into six themes. The findings indicate that teachers used passion as a teaching tool and that passionate teaching was used by all teachers in the study. Passion was experienced through the care that teachers felt for their students. Teachers who did not plan to use passion used passion when the opportunity was present and realized by the teacher. Using passion was a positive experience for teachers. Teachers who did not plan to use passion recognized changes in their behavior and felt good about themselves as teachers. Teachers who intended to use passion planned many of their own behaviors and felt good about themselves as teachers when experiencing passionate lessons. Teachers’ feelings were fueled by positive student feedback and perpetuated passionate teaching moments.

This study was focused on the effect of pre-service teaching utilizing a co-teaching model on student achievement at an elementary school in a large, urban school district in central Florida. The contribution of university student teachers (i.e., interns) to elementary school achievement was investigated. Specifically explored was the difference between student achievement scores in classes with interns who participated in a co-teaching model and interns in classes that did not employ any structured approach to intern teaching. The researcher compared seven classes that employed co-teaching, where the university intern teacher and master teacher remained in the class conducting instruction, to seven classes that had a more traditional approach to the intern teaching. The co-teaching intern model did not exert a significant effect, either positive or negative, on student achievement. Also investigated was the effect of an intern, utilizing any model, on student achievement scores, when compared to similar classes without the presence of an intern. The study utilized 14 classes with interns and 13 classes without interns; each group had populations of approximately 285 students. The presence of an intern did not exert a significant effect, either positive or negative, on student achievement. However, the data indicated that the presence of an intern could positively influence mathematics scores. Additionally, the impact of teacher quality and socio-economic status on student achievement in reading and mathematics were explored. The data revealed the value of the individual teacher significantly affected student success in reading and mathematics. In reading, socio-economic status also significantly affected student achievement.

Although STSE has recently received attention in educational research, policy, and science curricula development, fewer strides have been made in moving theory into practice. There are many examples of STSE-based and issues-based teaching in science at the elementary and secondary levels, which can be found in the literature (Alsop, Bencze, & Pedretti, 2005; Hodson, 1993, 2000; Pedretti & Hodson, 1995), yet little has focused specifically on physics education. This doctoral thesis will examine pre-service physics teachers’ beliefs and perceptions, challenges and tensions which influence their adoption of STSE education in the context of a pre-service physics education course (Curriculum and Instruction in Physics Education at the B.Ed level). An interpretive case study design as described by Merriam (1988) has been employed for this research (Merriam, 1988; Novodvorsky, 2006). The specific phenomena this case study examined and explored were the pre-service physics teachers’ beliefs and perceptions, challenges and tensions influencing their adoption of physics curricula that explicitly emphasizes an STSE orientation to physics education. The pre-service physics teachers’ evolution of perceptions and attitudes show growth in the areas of curricula understanding and implementation issues, potential student concerns, and general fit of the subject within the context of a student’s learning journey. This study contributes to our understanding of the challenges pre-service physics teachers face when considering teaching physics through an STSE lens, and provides some implications for both pre-service and in-service teacher education.

Although STSE has recently received attention in educational research, policy, and science curricula development, fewer strides have been made in moving theory into practice. There are many examples of STSE-based and issues-based teaching in science at the elementary and secondary levels, which can be found in the literature (Alsop, Bencze, & Pedretti, 2005; Hodson, 1993, 2000; Pedretti & Hodson, 1995), yet little has focused specifically on physics education. This doctoral thesis will examine pre-service physics teachers’ beliefs and perceptions, challenges and tensions which influence their adoption of STSE education in the context of a pre-service physics education course (Curriculum and Instruction in Physics Education at the B.Ed level). An interpretive case study design as described by Merriam (1988) has been employed for this research (Merriam, 1988; Novodvorsky, 2006). The specific phenomena this case study examined and explored were the pre-service physics teachers’ beliefs and perceptions, challenges and tensions influencing their adoption of physics curricula that explicitly emphasizes an STSE orientation to physics education. The pre-service physics teachers’ evolution of perceptions and attitudes show growth in the areas of curricula understanding and implementation issues, potential student concerns, and general fit of the subject within the context of a student’s learning journey. This study contributes to our understanding of the challenges pre-service physics teachers face when considering teaching physics through an STSE lens, and provides some implications for both pre-service and in-service teacher education.