Pre-service teachers’ views of school-based approaches to pre-service primary science teacher education

Primary pre-service teachers (PSTs) in Australia often have low confidence and negative experiences in relation to science and teaching science. This paper reports on pre-post survey data produced by four institutions involved in a multi-institutional project exploring the use of university-school partnerships for primary science teacher education. The findings show that the experience of engagement in school-based science teaching contributed to the development PST classroom readiness particularly with respect to statistically significant increases in confidence. We argue that moving tutorials from university into schools supports PSTs’ engagement with the teaching profession and teaching science.