As part of a project concerned with developing a better understanding of the detail of appropriate teaching of direct current (DC) electricity concepts, extensive individual interviews were conducted with a number of experienced senior high school physics teachers. These interviews explored teachers' perceptions of difficulties in student learning…

Describes the experiences of five mature-age preservice elementary teachers in a semester unit of science education designed to help teachers examine and make explicit their ideas about science and science teaching. Reports that the teachers expressed a need for a supportive environment in which concepts were built gradually and introduced using…

Reform documents have provided a framework for advancing science education (e.g., The Australian National Science Standard Committee, 2002), but omit the need to assess preservice teachers prior knowledge for designing effective learning programs. A pretest-posttest 34-item survey linked to the course outcomes (associated with four constructs)…