Important Biological Issues for Elementary Pupils – A Study of Elementary Pre-service Teachers’ Conceptions

This study aimed to investigate what kind of conceptions pre-service teachers have concerning the issues they find important in teaching and management of biology in order to be able to provide adequate learning to Finnish elementary school pupils. A questionnaire survey was conducted over three years in a Finnish university. Answers were subjected to content-based analysis. As background information, the pre-service teachers’ self-evaluation estimations of their biological content knowledge and management were measured.The important issues mentioned by pre-service teachers were mainly knowledge and skills, also experiences, attitudes, teaching, and some other matters concerning the Finnish National Core Curricula were mentioned. The conceptions of pre-service teachers were discussed in connection with subject content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge. The implications for science educators were also presented.