Confidence and Perceived Competence of Preservice Teachers to Implement Biodiversity Education in Primary Schools—Four comparative case studies from Europe

Abstract

This multinational research study was carried out between 2004 and 2006 in four teacher education institutions in Cyprus, England, Switzerland, and Germany. With the help of a written questionnaire, the confidence and perceived competence of preservice primary teachers (N = 690) to deliver biodiversity education in school were investigated. Data were triangulated with findings from a previous stage of the overall research project. Study participants' confidence to carry out certain outdoor activities in school increased with the number of similar experiences they had during their own secondary school education, and the more personal classroom experiences they had during their teacher education. A sound knowledge of local wild organisms strongly added to their confidence. However, preservice teachers' perceived competence, and thus motivation to implement biodiversity education later on in school, was related even more strongly to the extent of preparation they had received during their teacher education. The results indicate that teacher education programmes that focus exclusively on filling (biodiversity) knowledge gaps might fail to raise confidence and competence in their students to carry out biodiversity education in school. Programmes that have a higher possibility of attaining effectiveness in biodiversity education seek to strike a balance between background knowledge development, pedagogical content knowledge, and opportunities during teaching practice that leads to experiential gains in enacting meaningful activity sequences and engaging students in holistic educational innovations. Within such programmes, it would be fruitful to further explore the relationship between confidence, perceived competence, and actual teaching performance.

Systems Thinking for Understanding Sustainability? Nordic Student Teachers’ Views on the Relationship between Species Identification, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development

“…One of the most important key concepts is biodiversity. However, people's understanding of biodiversity, and particularly the importance of biodiversity for sustainability, is often incomplete and includes misunderstandings [60][61][62][63]. In this study, and our previous study [29], most of the student teachers considered biodiversity to be important or very important for sustainable development, but many of them could not explain why.…”

“…Although students do not understand the complexity of biodiversity, they do, according to another study [63], have positive attitudes towards it. Previous research emphasises the importance of the preparation of student teachers in biodiversity education [61,71]. Therefore, we find it important to analyse student teachers' understanding of biodiversity, what they include in the concept and how they describe the importance of biodiversity for sustainability.…”

“…Therefore, basic knowledge about species, their identification and life history have been considered to be fundamental components for learning and understanding biodiversity [31,33,57,61]. Biodiversity education in turn can be seen as a model for sustainability education, while sustainability education is one instrument among others (e.g., technical innovations and restrictions by law) for achieving a sustainable future [62].…”

Effect of a Toolkit and a One-Day Teacher Education Workshop on ESD Teaching Content and Methods—A Study from Kosovo

“…This is unfortunate as knowledge of and familiarity with species is the very foundation for an understanding of biodiversity loss, one of the world's most pressing crises [50]. Teachers should thus be especially encouraged and qualified in pre-service and in-service education to deliver biodiversity education in school [51,52].…”

“…Without practical instructions, i.e., just by providing teachers with new textbooks or other educational material, teachers will most likely continue with frontal instructions and pupils will continue to simply memorize the material [1]. Practical instructions were found to increase preservice teachers' confidence to approach sustainability issues in school [51,52].…”