This study examined preservice teachers' understanding of the syntactic structures of inquiry; in particular, what it means to give priority to evidence and how to use evidence to construct explanations. Data were collected from student journals, the course syllabus, the assignment description, and weekly lesson plans. The use of content analysis…

The usefulness of journals as a source of qualitative data in educational research was studied through journals kept by preservice teachers in an adolescent development course with a practicum component. Four journals were analyzed, two from preservice teachers assigned to project-centered classrooms and two from preservice teachers assigned to…