Date of Award
Summer 2025
Document Type
Open Access Dissertation
Department
Educational Studies
First Advisor
Christine Lotter
Abstract
Early childhood and elementary education preservice teachers often report having limited firsthand experiences in constructivist, inquiry-based science instruction. This can be a factor in contributing to nervous or anxious feelings about teaching science to young learners. To address this critical problem, this study explored the impact of interdisciplinary project-based learning (PBL) experiences on preservice teachers' selfefficacy. The study extended over six weeks of the preservice teachers' science methods courses. The early childhood participants engaged in interdisciplinary PBL by designing and exploring schoolyard gardens. The elementary participants investigated the local saltmarsh ecosystem focusing on the plants and animals. The PBL experiences in both courses included collaborative, science-inquiry-based, hands-on investigations related to recent environmental changes impacting cultural and ecological resources important to our community. After engaging in these firsthand investigations, preservice teachers reflected on their experiences as future educators.
In a mixed-methods approach, participants' weekly reflections and pre- and postinterdisciplinary PBL intervention STEBI-B surveys provided measures of change in self-efficacy. A post-intervention unit plan assignment was assessed to determine if the PBL experiences enhanced their ability to construct interdisciplinary science-focused unit plans for young learners. The results from Wilcoxon signed rank tests showed significant gains in both Personal Science Teaching Efficacy (PSTE) and Science Teaching Outcome Expectancy (STOE). The participants' unit plans varied in comparison between early childhood and elementary education. These quantitative and qualitive results suggest that the interdisciplinary PBL framework is an effective tool in impacting preservice teachers' science teaching self-efficacy. The weekly reflections coded using Bandura's sources of self-efficacy highlight the influence of group dynamics in the construction of their unit plans. According to the participants in this study, the interdisciplinary PBL enhanced selfefficacy and enthusiasm for adopting these constructivist inquiry-based strategies in their future science education practices.
Rights
© 2025, Kathryn Ruth Madden
Recommended Citation
Madden, K. R.(2025). Seeding Science: Exploring Impacts from Interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning Experiences on Preservice Teachers Science Teaching Self-Efficacy. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd/8527