A longitudinal study to identify prospective science teachers' beliefs about science teaching using the draw-a-science-teacher-test checklist

This is a longitudinal study aimed at revealing the beliefs of prospective science teachers in the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University/Sultanate of Oman about science teaching. To achieve this aim a Draw-A-Science-Teacher-Test Checklist (DASTT-C) tool was used. The study sample consisted of (45) prospective science teachers in the College of Education at Sultan Qaboos University. The instrument was applied to the sample three times: before the Science Method I course, after finishing this course and after finishing the Science Method II course and the Practicum. The results revealed that after completing the Science Methods I course, prospective science teachers shifted significantly from a teacher-centered approach to the intermediate state between the teacher-centered and student-centered. There was no significant change after the Science Methods II course and the Practicum. Furthermore, the results also showed that among the three different teaching styles: exploratory, conceptual and explicit indicated in the second part of the DASTT-C instrument, prospective science teachers in the current study were found to be at the conceptual teaching style, closer to the boundary with the exploratory teaching style. This teaching style remained consistent across the three administrations of the DASTT-C instrument.