New Perspectives in Science Education

The stage of initial training of primary school teachers is particularly relevant to promoting science education for future generations. International reports alert that there is a decline in the choice of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) studies, as disinterest and negative emotions towards these subjects increase with age. Within the framework of science education, several studies have been developed analyzing the affective domain in its relationship with the cognitive domain in students of different educational levels. Some studies indicate that primary school teachers in training do not feel competent to teach scientific contents and are unsure about their teaching. This may be related to the emotions they have experienced and continue to experience towards scientific-technological areas. The general objective of this study has been to identify the levels of self-efficacy and the emotions that teachers in training express towards STEM areas. The design of the research has been exploratory and quasi-experimental, with pre-test and post-test to compare the influence of the implementation of external practices on the variables under study. The measuring instruments were designed to analyze their levels of competence for the teaching of STEM curricular contents, the memory of their emotions in their school stage, the importance of certain scientific-educational issues in their training and the emotions they experience during the teaching process of the selected contents. Statistical analysis reveals differences in emotional variables, with positive variables decreasing and negative variables increasing as the academic level increased. At the same time, there are statistically significant differences depending on the block of contents, both in the emotional variables and in the variable level of teaching self-efficacy. Likewise, the comparative analysis of the pre-test versus post-test data shows the existence of statistically significant differences in positive emotions and capacities, depending on the scientific content. Based on this, it is important to highlight the need to strengthen scientific, didactic and emotional competence in primary school teachers in training through methodologies that raise their levels of teacher self-efficacy and emotions towards STEM areas.

Keywords: STEM, Primary education, Teachers in training, Self-efficacy;