Preservice Teachers' Images of Female Scientists, Male Scientists, and Teacher as Scientists: An Analysis of Stereotypical Indicators (open access)

Preservice Teachers' Images of Female Scientists, Male Scientists, and Teacher as Scientists: An Analysis of Stereotypical Indicators

The role of depicting and analysing scientist images to reveal gender-science stereotypes among students in K-12 classrooms is an ongoing research trend in science education literature. The study reported here carries on this research trend but focuses on preservice elementary teachers' images of scientists. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between preservice elementary teachers' gender and ethnicity and their drawn images of a female scientist, male scientist, and teacher as a scientist, respectively and the similarities and differences among images. In this study, preservice elementary teachers were asked to draw a female scientist, male scientist, and teacher as a scientist, respectively. One hundred and fifty participants indicated their gender and one hundred and twenty-five indicated their gender and ethnicity. Five hundred and eighty eight images were analysed. The data was analysed using a modified Draw-A-Scientist-Test Checklist (DAST-C) and chi-square tests. The results of this study indicate that gender-science stereotypes held by preservice teachers exist among genders and ethnicities. Factors that contribute to diminish or promote stereotypical images of scientists are age, education, culture, role models, and inquiry-based instruction. Also, similarities and differences between images of a female scientist, male scientist, and teacher as a scientist show …
Date: December 2019
Creator: Rendon, Netassha M
System: The UNT Digital Library