Chinese Journal of Science Education

Abstract

This research was based on data collected from the researcher's self-designed questionnaire and interviews. The purpose was to investigate the conceptions and misconceptions about weather possessed by pre-service and in-service elementary scho ol teachers. The questionnaire was developed to gather data from a large sample and allow for the testing of quantitative hypotheses about conceptions of weather. The interview was designed relative to the results of the questionnaire in an effort to expl ore questionnaire responses in more depth. The subjects of the investigation included 508 pre-service teachers and 444 in-service teachers. The 30 interviewees were selected with respect to their responses to the questionnaire. The findings of this study are reported as follows: (1) in terms of their questionnaire responses, male teachers performed better than female teachers for both the pre-service and in-service groups, (2) although the pre-service teachers outperformed the in-service teachers, the tea chers in both groups did not perform satisfactorily on the questionnaire, (3) both pre-service and in-service teachers exhibited significant misunderstandings about weather. In many cases, the teachers could not begin to answer questions asked during inte rviews. When the teachers were able to answer interview questions, their answers were filled with misconceptions, implying that they did not have sufficient knowledge about weather. While explaining their answers during interviews, the teachers would use very specific technical terms. However, the explanations provided by the two groups of teachers were commonly incoherent and did not indicate comprehension of the appropriate subject matter.

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