Do student teachers in science courses experience emotions differently? How are these emotions connected to self-efficacy beliefs and intentions to use the experiments in their future teaching? With the help of the experience sampling method data can be gathered and analysed to answer such questions.  

Negative experiences from previously attended schools might effect that pre-service science teachers need to develop positive attitudes again during science teacher education (Tosun, 2000). This can be explained with missing experiences of success in compulsory school science lessons. Emotions are part of teachers’ professional attitudes towards teaching science (van Aalderen-Smeets, Walma van der Molen, & Asma, 2012). Teo and Noyes (2011)could show for the subject technology that for student teachers next to gaining skills the experience of joy is important too to support their intention to use these skills in their own future teaching. Therefore, it is of importance to clarify, whether experiences in practical science teacher education courses go along with negative emotions that might hinder pre-service teachers to implement the learned skills in the classroom later. This negative impact might be mediated by low self-efficacy beliefs of beginning science teachers (Bandura, 1977; Cantrell, Young, & Moore, 2003). Unfavourable attitudes of science teachers might be the reason that adequate student practical work is not common in every science classroom (di Fuccia, Witteck, Markic, & Eilks, 2012). If at the end of their education pre-service teachers have not been able to develop a positive view of themselves as being competent in conducting science experiments they will not lay a strong focus on student oriented science practices in their own teaching as this is not connected with positive emotions (Cross & Hong, 2009). 

Ritchie et al. (2013)point out that the measurement of emotions should focus on in-the-moment emotional experiences of teachers because emotions are fleeting units often difficult to recall later in e.g. interviews or questionnaires. The experience sampling method is a research method that addresses this issue (Goetz, Bieg, & Hall, 2016). With the help of e.g. electronic devices like tablets or mobile phones real-time emotions can be collected quickly during course work. Quantitative analysis is most often applied; the multi-level structure with measures nested within persons (two-level structure) needs to be considered.

The following research questions are presented:

1. Is there a relationship between experienced emotions and the momentary intention to apply the experiment worked on in future science teaching?
2. Is there an effect of experienced emotions (state) on self-efficacy beliefs (trait) after the course?

Data was collected during a secondary pre-service teacher course on conducting experiments in biology in autumn 2018. 67 student teachers worked 9 times on experiments in the field of e.g. human physiology or micro biology. Every student filled out a short electronic questionnaire on tablets or mobiles with 6 items twice each course session; this adds up to 18 measurements for each student over time. Missing data are due to illness or other duties. Three items relate to negative emotions (uncertainty, no fun, stress), the other three items were feeling of competence, motivation and intention to apply the experiment in future. In addition, a longer questionnaire for measuring attitudes as traits was used before and after the course. At the end of the course, the students had to participate in an oral examination. To analyse the data random-slope multi-level models were applied. Multi-level regression models allow to consider differences between students over time and within (Heck & Thomas, 2015). Random-slope means that not only intercepts but also slopes are allowed to differ between students. First, a null model for student teacher emotions over time was calculated. The model with three manifest items showed good fit values: CFI = .99, TLI = .96, RMSEA = .03, SRMRwithin = .00, SRMRbetween =.07. For each of the three items a substantial amount of variance lies between the students: uncertainty: ICC = .26; no fun: ICC = .27 and stress: ICC = .42. All items loaded significantly on the latent factor “negative emotions”. Age was included in the model as a covariate but showed not to be significant. We tested also other covariates not included like gender, but they were not significant either.

Over time there was a small increase of negative emotions. For question 1 it showed that negative emotions significantly predict the momentary intention to use the experiment working on in future (averaged over students β = -.67). The more negative the emotions at the moment the less the momentary intention to use the experiment in future. However, this relationship differed significantly for each experiment and between students. Question 2 aims at explaining variance between the students in self-efficacy beliefs. For the variance part on level 2 (between) we obtained a significant beta value of -.47, meaning that students’ mean momentary emotions predict habitual self-efficacy beliefs after the course. There is significant but only small variance between students for this relationship. The results show that is important for science teacher educators to be aware of the development of students’ positive emotions during teacher education. Positive emotions foster students’ self-efficacy beliefs and strengthen their intentions to apply the skills acquired in teacher training institutions. Therefore, it is essential to provide prospective secondary teachers with support and monitoring during their teaching practice so as to foster awareness of their emotions towards science and its learning (Borrachero, Brígido, Mellado, Costillo, & Mellado, 2014).

Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological review, 84(2), 191-215. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191 Borrachero, A. B., Brígido, M., Mellado, L., Costillo, E., & Mellado, V. (2014). Emotions in prospective secondary teachers when teaching science content, distinguishing by gender. Research in Science & Technological Education, 32(2), 182-215. doi:10.1080/02635143.2014.909800 Cantrell, P., Young, S., & Moore, A. (2003). Factors Affecting Science Teaching Efficacy of Preservice Elementary Teachers. Journal of Science Teacher Education, 14(3), 177-192. doi:10.1023/a:1025974417256 Cross, D. I., & Hong, J. Y. (2009). Beliefs and Professional Identity: Critical Constructs in Examining the Impact of Reform on the Emotional Experiences of Teachers. In P. A. Schutz & M. Zembylas (Eds.), Advances in Teacher Emotion Research: The Impact on Teachers’ Lives (pp. 273-296). Boston, MA: Springer US. di Fuccia, D., Witteck, T., Markic, S., & Eilks, I. (2012). Trends in practical work in German science education. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science & Technology Education, 8(1), 59-72. Goetz, T., Bieg, M., & Hall, N. C. (2016). Assessing Academic Emotions via the Experience Sampling Method. In M. Zembylas & P. A. Schutz (Eds.), Methodological Advances in Research on Emotion and Education (pp. 245-258). Cham: Springer International Publishing. Heck, R. H., & Thomas, S. L. (2015). An introduction to multilevel modeling techniques: MLM and SEM approaches using Mplus. New York, NY: Routledge. Ritchie, S. M., Tobin, K., Sandhu, M., Sandhu, S., Henderson, S., & Roth, W.-M. (2013). Emotional arousal of beginning physics teachers during extended experimental investigations. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 50(2), 137-161. doi:10.1002/tea.21060 Teo, T., & Noyes, J. (2011). An assessment of the influence of perceived enjoyment and attitude on the intention to use technology among pre-service teachers: A structural equation modeling approach. Computers & Education, 57(2), 1645-1653. doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.03.002 Tosun, T. (2000). The beliefs of preservice elementary teachers toward science and science teaching. School Science and Mathematics, 100(7), 374-379. doi:10.1111/j.1949-8594.2000.tb18179.x van Aalderen-Smeets, S., Walma van der Molen, J., & Asma, L. (2012). Primary teachers' attitudes toward science: A new theoretical framework. Science Education, 96(1), 158-182. doi:10.1002/sce.20467