Gender Differences in Elementary Science Teacher Self-Efficacy.

Abstract

The purpose of the study described here was to examine gender as it affects elementary-school teacher attitudes towards teaching science. The Science Teaching Euicacy Belief Instrument (STEBI) was employed to measure the self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs of elementary preservice and inservice teachers. Due to the experience of females in society and in schools, it was hypothesized that they would have lower science teaching self-efficacy beliefs than their male counterparts. This hypothesis was tested on two independent samples: a sample of practicing elementary teachers from both rural and urban school districts (N=331) and a sample of rural and urban presetvice teachers (N=210). The results revealed significantly higher scores for males on self-efficacy for science teaching in both inservice and preservice samples. No significant differences were obtained for outcome expectancy scores. Findings suggest that methods courses in teacher education programs focus on preservice teachers, own experiences with science and past education inequities. Potential teachers' reflections regarding gender equity and their own educational experiences need to be addressed in order to.close the gender efficacy gap and enable ill teachers to approach science teaching with the same vigor. (LL) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. *******************1.*************************************************** Gender Differences in Elementary Science Teacher Self-efficacy

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