The Development of an Instrument to Measure Elementary Teachers' Intentions to Use Selected Science-Teaching Practices.

The major purpose of this study was to identify those science-teaching practices which were determined by science educators to be most and to be least essential and then to determine how elementary teachers intended to spend their time using these practices. Science educators served as judges to rank science-teaching practices as to their importance in early and later elementary classrooms. Selected items were used to develop instruments to measure early and later elementary teachers' intentions to use science-teaching practices. Following a three-week interval, the teachers completed a revised instrument to measure their actual use of these practices. They also responded to a background information survey to identify factors in their background or present teaching situation which might influence their intentions. Conclusions indicated that there was a strong positive relationship between the judgments of science educators' and teachers as to the use of selected science-teaching practices. Also, there were strong significant correlations between early elementary teachers' intensions to use, and their reported actual use, of all science-teaching practices. Later elementary teachers had significant positive correlations for fewer of the practices. Both science educators and teachers were found to value science-teaching practices that actively involved students and that developed science process skills. This study indicated that if early elementary teachers taught science as a separate subject and had adequate storage space for materials (which might be interpreted as indicating that they had the ability to prepare and organize materials), this could result in the teachers spending more time on practices designed to impart science process skills and thus to improve the state of science education.Ph.D.Science educationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/159655/1/8324293.pd