“Empowering Us to Teach Science”: Preservice Elementary Teachers’ Perceived Relevance of College Science Coursework

While some teacher preparation programs prepare preservice teachers (PSTS) to understand science content through general education courses, other programs provide elemenary PSTs with specialized science courses (SSCs) designed specifically for this population. We sought to understand how relevant PSTs perceived different course designs and what influenced their perception of relevance. We drew on the relevance continuum—with the levels of personal association, personal usefulness, and identification—to characterize how relevant PSTs perceived their college science courses. Participants perceived all course designs to be relevant at the lowest level but found a modified SSC more relevant than other designs. Courses were perceived as more relevant when they used activities that could be implemented in elementary classrooms, taught topics included in elementary classrooms, and helped PSTs learn science content. The modified SSC appeared to be particularly suited for promoting relevance because it included content elementary teachers will teach and made explicit connections to the work of elementary teaching.