ABSTRACT
Understanding science teachers’ beliefs is important for science teacher educators, because such understanding is a prerequisite for promoting change within the framework of educational reform. The worldview model developed by Graves (1981) and Beck and Cowan (1996) provides a holistic approach to understanding teachers’ beliefs and values and it also provides a framework for understanding how people’s worldviews change. In this study, worldviews of four science teachers were investigated within the framework of Beck and Cowan’s model. Two of these teachers were high school science teachers, while the other two were middle school science teachers. One of the teachers held National Board of Professional Teaching Certification and she had18 years of teaching experience. Another teacher was a relatively new teacher with three years of teaching experience. The third teacher had nine years of teaching experience, but when this study was conducted, it was her first year of teaching science. The other teacher had 26 years of experience with certification in all science areas. During this study, interpretative qualitative methods of data collection and analysis were used which included interviews, observations, and the use of a survey developed by Beck and Cowan (2000) called the Values Test. The results show that differing values and experiences among science teachers leads to different strategies for making sense of science teaching. The assertion that the worldview perspective provided by Beck and Cowan is a useful tool in understanding teachers’ beliefs and values is made in the conclusions. Teacher educators can utilize this tool in research about teacher beliefs, in promoting change for reform, or in developing curriculum for teacher education programs. Teachers can utilize it in self-reflective practices to better understand their own beliefs, their context, and their students and ultimately improve the teaching and learning process they engage in.
