An inquiry-based integrative STEM education approach was implemented in two fourth grade Elementary Education classes, in Spain, through a module on simple machines. The viability of this science education model in the official Spanish curriculum and its influence on students' attitudes towards science and learning of STEM subjects has been studied through an adapted Test of Science Related Attitude scale, achievement tests, and teachers' interviews. Students participating in the integrative STEM project reported significantly more favourable attitudes toward science than students from traditional classrooms. Although attitude scale and achievement test results seem to show that an integrative STEM education may be feasible in 4 th grade of the Spanish elementary education, interviews revealed reluctance among teachers to use integrative STEM education and more directive instructions on implementing such an educational model are demanded. Implications for science education and future studies are discussed.

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El propósito de este estudio fue identificar las dificultades que presentan maestros en formación para elaborar programaciones didácticas de ciencias naturales para educación primaria utilizando una metodología de indagación. Se analizan 157 unidades didácticas, primero clasificándolas atendiendo al grado de indagación que proponen. En aquellas con tipología más indagatoria, se identifican los componentes principales del proceso indagatorio que contienen, siguiendo una rúbrica elaborada a partir del protocolo 'Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol' (RTOP). Los resultados muestran que solamente un tercio de las unidades didácticas permitirían desarrollar una indagación, y parecen indicar que muchos estudiantes tienden a concebir la indagación como un quehacer práctico en el laboratorio, descontextualizado en la mayoría de las ocasiones, existiendo una dicotomía entre lo que recoge el marco teórico y la praxis que plantean los futuros docentes.Palabras clave: Metodología de indagación, formación inicial de maestros, ciencias en primaria, unidades didácticas. Elementary pre-service teachers' difficulties for designing science-teaching units by inquiryThe purpose of this study was to identify the difficulties that pre-service teachers show to develop science teaching units for primary education, using a methodology of inquiry. 157 didactic units were analysed, first classifying them according to the degree of investigation proposed. In those showing more inquisitive traits, the main components of the investigative process, according to a rubric developed from the Reformed Teaching Observation Protocol (RTOP) Protocol were identified. The results obtained established that only a third of the didactic units prepared by the pre-service teachers would be useful for developing an inquiry, and they seem to indicate that many students tend to conceived inquiry only as practical work in the laboratory, decontextualized in the majority of occasions.

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