unique within the university; rarely in other classes were
students expected to develop their own understanding of a
concept and explain it to an instructor prior to that instructor
first telling them precisely what they were expected to
learn.
Poor student affect in physics courses is especially
worrisome when those students will become teachers of
elementary and middle school students. If elementary
school teachers feel that physical science is not relevant,
or if they have a distaste for it, they will likely avoid
teaching it regardless of how well they understand it. As
a science education instructor said during an interview in
this study, ‘‘I can’t think of anything more important for an
elementary preservice teacher than to be excited about
teaching science. If you’re not excited about it, you
won’t teach it, and you’ll avoid everything about it.’’ In
other words, it will do us very little good to improve
science teachers’ science content knowledge if we do not
also foster their desire to teach science.