Are pre-service teachers constructivists in the constructivist teacher education program?

This study addressed the research question, how pre-service teachers' pedagogical philosophies are related to epistemological belief., attitude toward learning science, and their perceptions of the future effectiveness as classroom teachers in the constructivist teacher education course (called STEP at the University of Wisconsin-Madison). I, along with STEP researchers, participated to develop items matching each construct and performed a basic validity study to test whether good translation of the construct was made. To achieve this, I confirmed the establishment of each measurement model was established and tested whether the observed data fit the hypothesized structure model. By confirming a factor-structure model, I obtained general guidelines for making the STEP course more meaningful and pedagogic to help students acquire appropriate learning theory and problem-solving skills. Given the fact that the STEP course focused on applying constructivist principles of the learning sciences to the analysis of teaching and design of instruction, the research outcomes enabled STEP researchers, along with other educators, to empower pre-service teachers with constructivist pedagogical philosophy and to provide them with a device for facilitating contextual epistemologies by lessons that a factor structure pointing out the construct relationships offered in the analysis.