Making of epistemologically sophisticated physics teachers: A cross-sequential study of epistemological progression from preservice to in-service teachers

Previous literature on learners’ epistemological beliefs about physics has almost exclusively focused on analysis of university classroom instruction and its effects on students’ views. However, little is known about other populations or factors other than classroom instruction on learners’ epistemologies. In this study, we used a cross-sequential method, combining both longitudinal and cross-sectional designs, to investigate an epistemological progression trend from preservice to in-service teachers. Six cohorts of participants were studied, who either were then attending or had completed an undergraduate teacher preparation program in physics at a major Chinese university. These cohorts were incoming freshmen, end-of-year freshmen, end-of-year sophomores, end-of-year juniors, end-of-year seniors, and 1st-year high school physics teachers who were about to enter the 2nd year of teaching. We used the Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) as both a pretest and a post-test to gauge the changes in the participants’ epistemological views over an entire academic year. Follow-up interviews were also conducted to explore factors responsible for such changes. Results showed that the epistemological trend as measured by CLASS did not increase monotonically. Instead, there was a decrease in the epistemological trend among the incoming freshmen in their first year undergraduate studies, followed by a long stasis until the end of the senior year. Then, there was a rebound for the end-of-year seniors in their 1st year of teaching, followed by another plateau. Interviews revealed that the competitive learning environment, increased content difficulty, and unfamiliar pedagogies in college were major factors that negatively influenced incoming freshmen’s views about physics. Conversely, a role change from student to teacher and relatively easy content in high school positively impacted end-of-year seniors’ views about physics and learning.

Figure 1

A Cross-sequential study of six cohorts of participants, each underwent a full academic year of undergraduate studies or in-service teaching. For example, cohort A took the pretest prior to the freshman year (pre-university) and took the post-test at the end of the freshman year. Cohort B, for another example, took the pretest at the end of their freshman year and took the post-test at the end of sophomore year. Cohort F, for yet another example, took the pretest at the end of the 1st year of teaching and took the post-test at the end of the 2nd year of teaching.

Figure 2

Pre and post overall CLASS scores for the six cohorts of participants (cohorts A, B, C, D, E, and F). Marks denoted by alphabetical letters without prime signs are pretest results for each cohort; marks denoted by letters with prime signs are post-test results. Error bars represent standard errors. (a) Two cross-sectional trend lines obtained in two consecutive years. (b) Six longitudinal lines for the six cohorts.

Figure 3

Sequential trend lines denoting the longitudinal shifts on the 8 categories of CLASS for participants in cohorts A, B, C, D, E, and F. Error bars represent standard errors. (a) Personal interest, (b) real-world connection, (c) problem solving general, (d) problem solving confidence, (e) problem solving sophistication, (f) sense making, (g) conceptual understanding, and (h) applied conceptual understanding.