Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) and Computer Science (CS) are the driving forces of the United States prosperity. While there is a high demand to close the gap in STEM+CS jobs, there is little research in K-12, especially in K-5 level. Elementary teachers lack of self-confidence in STEM+CS and there is limited number of teacher…

The Framework for K-12 Science Education and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) underscore the importance of including engineering design process (EDP) within the science curriculum. The Framework and the NGSS raised engineering design to the level of scientific inquiry in an attempt to prepare a STEM-literate workforce for the 21st…

Evolutionary theory is central to biology, and scientifically accurate evolution instruction is promoted within national and state standards documents. Previous literature has identified students' epistemological beliefs as potential predictors of evolution acceptance. The present work seeks to explore more directly how student views of evolution…

This study examined the acceptance of evolutionary theory among Chinese preservice biology teachers. We explored the nature of relationship between acceptance of evolutionary theory and potential predictors of acceptance such as understanding of evolutionary theory, mother's education level, thinking dispositions, religious orientation, and years…

The present study investigated to what extent Turkish preservice elementary teachers' orientations to teaching science could be explained by their epistemological beliefs, conceptions of learning, and approaches to learning science. The sample included 157 Turkish preservice elementary teachers. The four instruments used in the study were School…

We examined to what extent elementary teachers' nature of science (NOS) and nature of scientific inquiry (NOSI) views, and science teaching efficacy beliefs change after a five-day professional development program designed to teach NOS and NOSI integrated with language arts. We found that elementary teachers improved their NOS and NOSI views, and…

This paper articulates the importance of epistemological beliefs (EBs) and draws a parallel between EBs literature in educational psychology and nature of science (NOS) literature in science education. The paper stresses that EBs in science and NOS ideas have common ground and they can be best improved through explicit-reflective instruction…

Epistemological beliefs refer to an individual's thinking and beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing. The present study examined two research questions: (1) how do prospective elementary teachers' epistemological beliefs in science change as a result of instruction specifically designed to improve their epistemological beliefs and (2)…

In this study, using multiple regression analysis, we aimed to explore the factors related to acceptance of evolutionary theory among preservice Turkish biology teachers using conceptual ecology for biological evolution as a theoretical lens. We aimed to determine the extent to which we can account for the variance in acceptance of evolutionary…