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Sixth-Grade Elementary and Seventh- and Eighth- Grade Middle School Teachers' Knowledge and Beliefs About Science Literacy Melissa P Brigham Young University Masthead Logo BYU ScholarsArchive All Theses and Dissertations 2018-03-01 Sixth-Grade Elementary and Seventh- and Eighth- Grade Middle School Teachers' Knowledge and Beliefs About Science Literacy Melissa P. Mendenhall Brigham Young University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd BYU ScholarsArchive Citation Mendenhall, Melissa P., "Sixth-Grade Elementary and Seventh- and Eighth-Grade Middle School Teachers' Knowledge and Beliefs About Science Literacy" (2018). All Theses and Dissertations. 7317. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/7317 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. Sixth-Grade Elementary and Seventh- and Eighth-Grade Middle School Teachers’ Knowledge and Beliefs About Science Literacy Melissa P. Mendenhall A thesis submitted to the faculty of Brigham Young University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Leigh K. Smith, Chair Kendra M. Hall-Kenyon Ryan S. Nixon Department of Teacher Education Brigham Young University Copyright © 2018 Melissa P. Mendenhall All Rights Reserved ABSTRACT Sixth-Grade Elementary and Seventh- and Eighth-Grade Middle School Teachers’ Knowledge and Beliefs About Science Literacy Melissa P. Mendenhall Department of Teacher Education, BYU Master of Arts The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore Grades 6-8 teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about science literacy and instruction that develops science literacy, in both the fundamental and derived senses. All Grade 6 elementary teachers and Grades 7-8 middle school science teachers from five school districts in the Mountain West region of the U.S. were invited to participate by responding to an online survey consisting of open response questions and critical instances. Data were analyzed using an immersion style of coding. Findings suggest a majority of teachers view literacy as reading and writing and text as something that is read or written. Teachers described science literacy as either the integration of science and literacy or as using basic literacy skills in science. When teachers were asked to identify quality instruction for developing science literacy via critical instances, a majority were successful when presented with examples that exemplify best practices in teaching science literacy but could not discriminate levels of quality when examples included minimal or no elements considered to be best practices. This suggests that teacher education programs and professional development should include opportunities that help preservice and practicing teachers better understand the importance of teaching both science subject matter knowledge as well as communicative practices used in science. Keywords: disciplinary literacy, elementary, middle school, science education, science literacy ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I want to thank Dr. Leigh K. Smith for mentoring me along this journey. She was always positive, helpful, thoughtful, wise, knowledgeable, and kind. Without her, I would have been lost. Instead, I gained a wonderful friend and found joy in the experience. Also, I am grateful for Dr. Kendra M. Hall-Kenyon and Dr. Ryan S. Nixon. They provided insightful suggestions and were always available to walk me through any problems I encountered along the way. Additionally, I want to thank my husband for constantly making my work area comfortable with cozy fires in the woodstove. He did not doubt in my ability to do hard things and kept me focused on the end result. I am fortunate to have wonderful children who are patient and listened to my thesis progress stories way too often. Finally, I want to thank Jean. She was my cheerleader and my dear friend. I am lucky to know her. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS TITLE PAGE ................................................................................................................................... i ABSTRACT .................................................................................................................................... ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ vii CHAPTER 1 Introduction............................................................................................................... 1 CHAPTER 2 Review of Literature ................................................................................................. 6 Educational Reform and New National Standards .................................................................... 6 Literacy .................................................................................................................................... 11 Disciplinary literacy .......................................................................................................... 14 Science literacy ................................................................................................................. 17 Teacher Knowledge and Beliefs .............................................................................................. 22 Knowledge and beliefs ...................................................................................................... 22 Science teacher knowledge and beliefs ............................................................................ 24 Implications for implementing new science standards ..................................................... 26 Research Purpose ..................................................................................................................... 27 CHAPTER 3 Method .................................................................................................................... 28 Research Design ....................................................................................................................... 28 Participants ............................................................................................................................... 29 Context of the Study ................................................................................................................ 30 District A ........................................................................................................................... 32 District B ........................................................................................................................... 33 v District C ........................................................................................................................... 33 District D ........................................................................................................................... 33 District E ........................................................................................................................... 33 Data Source .............................................................................................................................. 33 Part one of the survey questionnaire ................................................................................. 34 Part two of the survey questionnaire ................................................................................. 37 Data Collection......................................................................................................................... 37 Researcher Stance .................................................................................................................... 38 Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 40 Organizing the data ........................................................................................................... 40 Coding the data ................................................................................................................. 41 Interpreting the data .......................................................................................................... 42 Limitations ............................................................................................................................... 47 CHAPTER 4 Findings .................................................................................................................. 50 Teachers’ Knowledge and Beliefs about Science Literacy ...................................................... 50 The meaning of literacy .................................................................................................... 51 The meaning of text .......................................................................................................... 52 The meaning of science text ............................................................................................. 53 The meaning of science literacy ....................................................................................... 54 Teachers’ Knowledge and Beliefs about Quality Science Literacy Instruction ...................... 55 Not authentic scenarios ....................................................................................................
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