The apparent rejection of Education Studies by
pre-service and in-service teachers has concerned teacher educators for some
time (Holligan 1997; Sexton 2007; Allen 2009; Korthagen 2010). Although this issue
is well explored and potential solutions for ‘bridging the divide’ have been
suggested the issue still remains to be a concern (Anderson and Freebody 2012; Knight
2015). This study offers a new perspective to examine this rejection by
considering how teachers compare knowledge between their subject area and their
Education Studies component of their Initial Teacher Education (ITE).
This paper reports qualitative findings from the first
time-point in a larger 18-month longitudinal study with science teachers as
they transition from pre-service to in-service teaching. In-depth
semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 pre-service teachers in order
to explore beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing in
both Science and Education Studies (i.e. Personal Epistemologies - Hofer 2000),
as well as their perceptions of Educations Studies as relevant or useful for
teaching.
In line with international literature (e.g. Kang 2008;
Markic & Eilks 2012), science teachers in this study espoused
unsophisticated beliefs about the nature of knowledge and knowing in science.
The unique finding of this study is that these beliefs about science were used
by participants in order to justify negative criticism of knowledge from
Education Studies components of their ITE. The potential implications for
teacher education are discussed.