Sources of self-efficacy in a science methods course for primary teacher education students

Self-efficacy has been shown to be an issue of concern for primary teacher education students - many of them have low self-efficacy and this can negatively affect their future teaching of science. Previous research has identified four factors that may contribute towards self- efficacy: enactive mast...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Research in science education (Australasian Science Education Research Association) 2006-12, Vol.36 (4), p.337-353
Main Author: Palmer, D. H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cognitive Ability
Elementary School Teachers
Methods Courses
Postsecondary education
Preservice Teacher Education
Preservice Teachers
Primary school teachers
Psychological Patterns
Science Instruction
Science teaching
Self Efficacy
Surveys
Teacher Effectiveness
Teaching Methods
Teaching process
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Self-efficacy has been shown to be an issue of concern for primary teacher education students - many of them have low self-efficacy and this can negatively affect their future teaching of science. Previous research has identified four factors that may contribute towards self- efficacy: enactive mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and physiological/affective states. It could also be argued that there are additional sources of self-efficacy that apply to primary teacher education students, namely cognitive content mastery, cognitive pedagogical mastery and simulated modelling. The main purpose of the present paper was to investigate the relative importance of the various sources of self-efficacy in a primary science methods course. Data on changes in self-efficacy and sources of self-efficacy were collected throughout the course using formal and informal surveys. It was found that the main source of self-efficacy was cognitive pedagogical mastery. [Author abstract]
ISSN:0157-244X
1573-1898
DOI:10.1007/s11165-005-9007-0