Search results for: Subject matter

The present study explores Finnish preservice subject teachers’ perspectives and experiences with movement integration in academic classrooms. In the study, 44 subject teachers applied an integrated approach to infuse physical activity into a required teacher-preparatory course. The program’s framework is the constructivist learning approach. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations and field notes. The findings show that movement integration was a new concept for the preservice teachers and that their experience positively influenced their beliefs regarding the use of that concept in academic lessons. Thus, it is possible to support implementation of movement integration into secondary academic classrooms.

The present study examines future teachers’ motivations for teaching using the FIT-Choice (Factors Influencing Teaching Choice) scale. The focus thereby is on subject interest, a factor that has rarely been accounted for by FIT-Choice studies although it is considered one of the most important factors to students for choosing teaching as a career. It is also assumed that students of different subject domains belong to different subcultures and therefore differ in their motivations. On the basis of n = 386 first-year, Bachelor students qualifying for lower and upper secondary schools from a large university in Germany, a latent confirmatory factor analysis shows that the FIT-Choice scale structure could be replicated and subject-specific interest was rated the most important factor by pre-service teachers. Latent path analyses reveal that students from different subject domains differ slightly in their motivations. More importantly, students who value their studied subjects’ importance highly also show higher intrinsic, social-altruistic, and pedagogical motivations.

This study aimed to evaluate subject matter knowledge (SMK), pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), concerning chemical reactions for science teaching of beginning student teachers in Turkey. The results revealed that a high proportion of the student teachers were able to correctly apply the very basic concepts of Conservation of Mass and Conservation of Atoms. However, only one quarter of the students brought a sufficient understanding with them from secondary school to correctly answer the more difficult problems.

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary teachers' attitudes toward the different subjects that they teach. The participants were 490 elementary school teachers from two rural school districts in the southeastern United States. Reading and language arts were consistently ranked among the favorite and most enjoyed subjects to teach, whereas science and writing were consistently ranked among the least favorite and least enjoyed subjects to teach. Implications for teacher preparation and policies related to elementary school teaching assignments are discussed.