Self-Study in Pre-service Science Teacher Education

This chapter provides an overview of the use of self-study research in preservice science teacher education by looking at how others have written about the field, and how that relates to the self-study of preservice science teacher education. It begins by acknowledging the differences among those who engage in the practice of and research on science teacher education from those who engage in research on science education. While the former focus on the nature and practice of teaching, the latter are more likely to focus on aspects of learning the discipline. The chapter then explores the nature of self-study as a methodology and its methods. The resulting framework is used to examine 22 publications that explicitly stated that they are self-studies of preservice science teacher education to uncover the ways that they exhibit collaboration, the types of data sources and analysis methods used, and the styles of their products. For the most part the researchers used qualitative methods that were narrative or traditional and ethnographic in nature. The chapter closes with a look at the validity of self-study research and how that relates to its role in the project to both improve the preparation of science teachers and to add to our knowledge of how people learn to teach