Conceptual Change in Elementary School Teacher Candidate Knowledge of Rock-Cycle Processes.

It has been demonstrated that elementary school teacher candidates are very weak in their knowledge of science. This is a follow-up study to a previous investigation on the knowledge of elementary school teacher candidates about rock-cycle processes. Three different instructional interventions were used in an attempt to improve their knowledge: conceptual-change teaching, traditional didactic teaching, and microteaching. A control group was also used. The conceptual-change group showed significant growth in understanding, whereas less growth was exhibited by the traditional and microteaching students. The control group exhibited zero growth, as expected. The traditional students frequently used scientific vocabulary that was incorrectly applied. The micro-teachers used ineffective planning techniques and were observed teaching their own misconceptions. The results of this study further support previous research on the effectiveness of conceptual-change approaches to science instruction. This study is uniq...