A cohort of novice Danish science teachers : Background in science and argumentation about science teaching

A survey on science background and argumentation about science teaching was conducted on a local cohort of newly qualified Danish science teachers. The survey was administered before the novice teachers began their first jobs in primary and lower secondary schools and focused on their reflections on specific scenarios of science teaching and themselves as teachers in various science fields. Three areas of concern were identified: There was evidence of reflection upon and argumentation for the practice of science teaching being stundent centred, but many respondents showed a tendency to focus on students’ activities as a goal in themselves, few considered what the students learned through the activities. Results furthermore suggest that the teachers’ own assessment of their subject matter knowledge in the physics field may, for a large subgroup in the cohort, affect their approach to teaching science.


Introduction
A decline in young Europeans' interest in science during education and as a career has been widely discussed and recent policy documents recommend reforms in the approach to how science is taught in the school system (Rocard et al., 2007;Osborne and Dillon, 2008).Children's early experiences with science are crucial and teachers play a significant role in determining students' attitudes to school science and their subject choices, in fact teachers are claimed to be the single most important factor in relation to the quality of science education (Osborne, Simon and Collins, 2003).In Denmark, as in the other European nations, reforms in the teaching of science are discussed (e.g.Andersen, 2008), but there is a lack of local research that focuses on science teachers' backgrounds and approaches to science teaching.Much of the international research involves university trained secondary science teachers while teachers for Danish primary and lower secondary schools are trained in integrated university college (UC) programs.Students entering the Danish UC teacher education programs have been referred to as having a humanistic profile and concerns have been raised about graduation of too few teachers with a science specialization and that those who graduate have too little science subject matter knowledge (Andersen, 2008).A recent reform aiming to strengthen science led to raised admission requirements in the UC programs, with the immediate result that around 40 % fewer students specialized in science (Kristensen, 2009).There is already a lack of science teachers, so there is definitely a need for further reforms and for more knowledge about Danish UC trained science teachers.What is their background in science and their thinking about science teaching and themselves as science teachers?
A cohort of novice Danish science teachers: Background in science and argumentation about science teaching

Science teachers' knowledge, beliefs and orientations
The work of science teachers is complex, dynamic and requires lots of decision making, as well as knowledge.Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) has for the last 25 years been used as a construct to identify teachers' professional knowledge (e.g.Shulman, 1986, Abell 2007;Berry, Loughran and van Driel, 2008).PCK is highly content and context dependant.The aim of this study is a broad characterization of Danish science teachers' background, not to understand in depth the PCK of a single or a few teachers in reference to a specific science sub-area, as is the case with many studies in the ongoing PCK research.But the fundamental understanding is that learning to teach involves integrating and transforming different kinds of knowledge: Pedagogical Knowledge (PK), Subject Matter Knowledge (SMK) and Knowledge about Context.
It has been suggested that teachers' beliefs may be even more important than knowledge when making decisions in the classroom.Teachers may have similar knowledge, but teach in very different ways, and their beliefs can form a somewhat tacit, but still decisive conceptual map for instructional decision-making (Pajares, 1992).Later research has further investigated the complex relationship between teacher beliefs, which are mental, and their actions in the social arena, for example in relation to using inquiry in science teaching (Wallace and Kang, 2004).A simple causal relationship between beliefs and actions in the classroom cannot be assumed, but the importance of teacher beliefs in relation to their professional decision-making is widely acknowledged, and beliefs are considered a central component of PCK (e.g.Magnusson, Krajcik and Borko, 1999;Friedrichsen and Dana, 2005).

Teachers' approach to students' inquiries
Beliefs about the purposes and goals of teaching science at a particular grade level have been referred to as orientations towards science teaching and various orientations have been identified in literature i.e. process, conceptual change, activity-driven, discovery, project based, inquiry and guided inquiry (Magnusson et al., 1999).Research has revealed that prospective and practicing teachers often show a mix of orientations when arguing about various examples of science teaching, so it can be difficult to build up a precise profile for any individual teacher (Friedrichsen and Dana, 2003;2005).But teachers' arguments and reflections about science teaching based in the interplay between their PK, SMK and personal beliefs and experiences might still show an average picture of a prevalent student centred conception of science teaching versus a teacher centred conception and an activity driven orientation versus a transmission orientation (Abell and McDonald, 2006;Abell, 2007).These orientations can be seen in a continuum where one extreme is the transmission orientation with the teacher as a dispenser of knowledge and students as passive receivers working with teacher specified activities, the other a student centred conception, with the extreme of seeing the teacher as a coach and facilitator and the student as a self-directed learner (Anderson, 2007).A tri-partition is used in other studies: A traditionalist teacher (transmission), a process oriented teacher, who focuses on scientific methods and experimental knowledge, and a constructivist teacher, who helps students construct knowledge (Tsai, 2002).
In contemporary research and policy papers the main challenge for reforming science in school is identified as the widespread use of the transmission orientation meaning that science teachers take a chalk and talk approach instead of a more inquiry-oriented approach (Rocard et al., 2007;Osborne and Dillon, 2008).But focusing only on this challenge might simplify the issue.Studies involving primary science teachers have highlighted a somewhat opposite problem, a purely activity-driven orientation with students spending a lot of time doing science, but little time thinking, talking, posing questions, or constructing explanations, with the goal of making science interesting, enjoyable and fun, but without much focus on what was learned (Abell and McDonald, 2006).Elementary teachers may be convinced of the value of hands-on-activities, but are not always able to develop science content from these exercises and may not even be aware of what science A cohort of novice Danish science teachers [204] 7(2), 2011 students are supposed to learn from the activities (Levitt, 2002).Furthermore there appears to be a widely held lack of confidence among primary science teachers lodged in their own negative experiences as learners and a lack of confidence with their own SMK (Abell, Bryan and Andersson, 1998;Johnston and Ahtee, 2006).Meanwhile secondary Physics and Chemistry teachers seem more confident having typically experienced success themselves in their subject area in the existing educational environment (Tsai, 2002).
These results indicate that there might be decisive differences between the orientations toward science teaching and beliefs about yourself as a science teacher held by university educated secondary science teachers, who has been informants in many studies, and UC trained teachers, where less is known.This led to the following research questions:

Research Questions
1. What characterizes new Danish UC trained science teachers' science background? 2. How do new Danish UC trained science teachers reflect on themselves as science teachers?3. How do new Danish UC trained science teachers reflect on science teaching?

Sample
Informants constitute the full local cohort of novice science teachers who graduated in June 2009 from a UC teacher education in Denmark (n=110).The training at the UC offers four science specializations: Biology, Physics & Chemistry, Geography and Science & Technology; the three first are identical to subjects taught in lower secondary, grade 7-9, while Science & Technology is integrated primary science, grade 1-6.The cohort in this study entered before the reform mentioned above and can be seen to represent a typical cohort of science teachers in the school system at the moment.

Data collection
Data was collected through a semi-structured web-based questionnaire, containing single item questions revealing background information, but with central questions seeking open ended, word based answers due to the exploratory character of the study.The questionnaire was administered at the end of training, but before the informants started their career as teachers.Data include answers about background in science, considerations about themselves as science teachers in various fields and reflections on a range of short science teaching scenarios (Friederichsen and Dana, 2003).Friedrichsen and Dana used science teaching scenarios as tools for helping teachers articulate their knowledge and beliefs during interviews.From their range of scenarios for elementary and middle school seven were chosen as central to the Danish curriculum.The scenarios, slightly refined to fit into a Danish context, are shown in table 1.The question following the scenarios was: Is this an approach you would consider taking?It is very important that you substantiate your arguments and that you write what you think is positive/negative in the scenario compared to your conception of science teaching.

Responses
The questionnaire was piloted and refined before final data collection.The response rate was 79%; 87 informants completed the full questionnaire.The division on the various specializations are shown in

Teachers' reflections and argumentation on the scenarios Students' motivation
The main argumentation surrounds whether students are motivated and interested or not.

You could work with this in a much more interesting way Students' self-regulation
The main argumentation is about if -and to what degree the school students are able to regulate their own work

Positive about students' selfregulation
They are going to find the results themselves 9 th grade know how to work on their own Doubtful about students' selfregulation I would use such an approach to a certain degree being aware that some students have problem with self motivation Negative about students' selfregulation

It would be dangerous to take such a free approach Students' activity
The

Analysis
Open answers were approached as qualitative data using methods from content analysis and open coding (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007).The arguments about teaching a certain science field were coded as either positive or negative and according to the following four categories (table 2): • Teachers' subject specialization • Teachers' subject matter knowledge Each category was subdivided into positive, doubtful and negative.Coding was done separately by two researchers, inter coder reliability was more than 80% from the beginning and afterwards coding with incongruence was refined.There are examples of arguments referring to more than one category, but in the final coding all reflections could be coded in one of the categories in a reliable way referring to the main argumentation.
Acknowledging the diffuse character of teacher orientations the open coding of the scenarios was supplemented with two kinds of theory-informed coding (table 3).Firstly, reflections were separated in process-oriented arguments, constructivist oriented arguments and arguments pointing to a traditionalist approach (Tsai, 2002).Through this analysis a category describing argumentation with both 'hands on' (process-oriented) and 'heads on' (constructivist) reference was separated, arguments which refer to inquiry as including the learners scientifically oriented questions, explanations, communication and justification (Abell and McDonald, 2006;Bybee, 2006).
Secondly, student-centred and teacher-centred arguments were identified to underpin a discussion of how reflections may be seen in reference to the continuum of orientations (Anderson, 2007).Student-centred reflections were sub-divided into arguments referring to students' learning and other student-centred arguments.Reflections referring to what students may learn through a certain teaching-approach were seen to differ from arguments for example being backed by something being a good idea while students were active.This subdivision acknowledges that a teacher's focus on how and what students learn is seen as decisive in contemporary research on teachers' professional development (e.g.Borko, 2004).In these two coding procedures some of the reflections were coded as 'other arguments' as it was not possible to place them in a particular category.

Science background
Based on information given about upper secondary education the cohort can be divided into two groups: High level background before teacher training or low level background.This is based upon how much science they took in upper secondary: A, B or C level, not on their marks (table 4).
In Danish upper secondary school (gymnasium) an A level is 3 years, a B level 2 years and a C level is 1 year of a particular subject.Combinations of levels of science subjects coded as high level are AA, AB, ACC, BBC or BCC.The % is based on the 87 teachers who completed the full questionnaire.The division across the four specializations is shown in numbers.Eleven of the teachers have opted for two science specializations in teacher training.
The result of making this rough division shows that 30% of the cohort had a high level background.63 % of the teachers specializing in Physics & Chemistry in teacher training have a high level background, while the majority of the new teachers with Geography, Biology and Science & Technology specializations have only basic mandatory background in science from upper sec- 7(2), 2011 ondary school.This result is supported by the fact that nearly half of the informants specifically emphasize their humanistic background in an open category at the end of the questionnaire.57% of the respondents reported their teacher identity attached to other areas than science.Physics & Chemistry teachers dominated when it came to identity as science teachers and also in relation to interest in science from their own school background.Some teachers, especially Biology teachers referred to interest in the nature/outdoor part of science in particular.The gender division in high/low level background nearly follows the general gender division in the various specializations, for example 30 % of the ones who have high level background and Physics & Chemistry are female: so in each specific specialization high/low level background is gender neutral.

Reflections on themselves as science teachers
When asked if they want to teach in a certain science field all the teachers obviously expressed a preference to teach their own specialization, but more teachers were prepared to teach Science & Technology, Geography and Biology without having a specialization in contrast to Physics & Chemistry (table 5 a).25.9 % state that they will say yes if asked to teach Physics & Chemistry, which is more or less the same percentage (24%) as those specialized, whereas 64.7 % would say no.
When analyzing what kind of argumentation the teachers use to back why they do or do not want to teach in the various fields, two kinds of representations are used in table 5. 67.3 % of the arguments for not wanting to teach Physics & Chemistry refer to lack of SMK (table 5 a).This is also the main category for Biology.Those without a specific background in Biology, but who would be prepared to teach it refer to personal interest (26.9 %).The same kinds of comments are made for Geography.Students' age is an issue especially when arguing about Science & Technology (primary science); 19.5 % are negative because of students' age, while 9.8 % are positive with reference to students' age.Table 5 c confirms significant difference between arguments used about wanting or not wanting to teach in the four science fields.
When looking into how teachers with various specializations argue on all fields summed (table 5 b) there is a partition in the cohort where arguments grounded in lack of SMK are expressed most by teachers with Geography (37.2 %) and Science & Technology (36.0 %), to a lesser degree by teachers with Biology (9.6 %) and only occasionally by teachers with a Physics & Chemistry specialization (2.3 %).There is significant difference between teachers with Physics & Chemistry versus Geography and Science & Technology, and also between teachers with Biology versus Science & Technology (table 5 c).A cohort of novice Danish science teachers [210] 7(2), 2011 The teachers with Physics & Chemistry seem to feel more confident in teaching life and earth science as well.If they argue for not wanting to do it, their arguments are not about lack of SMK like examples from other teachers when referring to Physics & Chemistry: "How could I possibly teach something I do not understand at all myself."or about Science & Technology: "I am not good in the physics part."When teachers with Physics & Chemistry do not argue about lack of SMK it might be due to their higher background from upper secondary (above), but Biology teachers do not have a similar background from upper secondary.

Reflections on science teaching
Results from analyzing teachers' reflections and arguments on the seven scenarios are shown in table 6.The results about arguments used most frequently, by all teachers for all seven scenarios are highlighted in the bottom row.

% of the argumentation is about students' motivation:
"A problem based approach is an excellent motivating factor."and 18 % about their self-regulation:  "Posing hypothesis and trying them out."comprises 14 %.
Table 7 and 8 show analyses for all arguments on all scenarios coded according to table 3.

Table 6: Teachers' reflections on the seven scenarios. The coding of the type of main argumentation showing columns with the six categories, each category sub-divided into Positive (P), Doubtful (D) or Negative (S) and in a separate row summed % of argumentation in this category. In the last column the average is shown for each scenario. The most frequent argumentation is bold. In the last row the average for all teachers on all scenarios is shown. All numbers are in %.
Table 6: Teachers' reflections on the seven scenarios.The coding of the type of main argumentation showing columns with the six categories, each category sub-divided into Positive (P), Doubtful (D) or Negative (S) and in a separate row summed % of argumentation in this category.In the last column the average is shown for each scenario.The most frequent argumentation is bold.In the last row the average for all teachers on all scenarios is shown.All numbers are in %.   7(2), 2011

Scenarios
More than half the arguments indicate a student-centred focus (table 7), but positive arguments about students' activity or negative arguments about passive students are not often associated with students' learning or lack of learning, only 9 %.
In table 8 referring to Tsai (2002) the main part of the argumentation, 41 %, indicates a constructivist view either explicit: "This is a good constructivist approach where students construct their knowledge."or implicit according to the descriptors in the codebook in table 3: "The special focus on posing questions can be used to clear up the students' prior knowledge and their pre-conceptions and support the students."29 % is coded as process-oriented.This sort of argumentation focuses on scientific methods and problem solving.A small fraction of the process-oriented arguments explicitly mention what they call the scientific method, emphasizing one particular specific scientific method, one of the frequently mentioned misconceptions in the area of NoS.These teachers all have a Physics & Chemistry specialization and a high level background.5 % of the arguments indicate an integrated approach to inquiry, where there is a reference to hands on as well as heads on: "Students are using their hands and you can add theory while they are working and afterwards.""A good approach where the foundation is the student's experiments.The teacher of course has to follow up on students' experiences."Students formulating explanations from evidence, as in the contemporary understanding of integrated inquiry (Bybee, 2006;Abell and McDonald, 2006), is not mentioned but still, these arguments are different from arguments just referring to hands on activities.There were no reflections indicating a transmission orientation (Tsai, 2002).
When looking further into the kind of argumentation used for the separate scenarios (table 6) in the case of scenario 1 (students observe earthworms, generate questions and design an experiment) 55.7 % of the teachers refer to NoS in their argumentation.This could be expected, while words like observation, hypothesis and experiment are explicitly used in the phrasing of the scenario.It might be more interesting that 32 % of the arguments refer to active, motivated, selfregulated students without mentioning hypothesis, inquiry or scientific methods.When comparing with scenario 7 (find possible ways to light the bulb), where such phrasing is not as explicit, a smaller percentage of the arguments, 18.1 %, are categorized as referring to NoS.This scenario plus the earthworm scenario are where a small group of teachers with a specialization in Physics & Chemistry refer to the scientific method.
The bulb scenario and another referring to physics SMK (scenario 5: the water toy rocket) are where the reflections about lack of own SMK are concentrated, contrary to the scenarios referring to life science or earth science.19.3 % of the teachers spontaneously refer to a lack of own SMK as a limitation when arguing about the bulb scenario.Except for the references to a lack of SMK, the argumentation about the water toy rocket scenario is mainly positive (81.6 %).Many positive reflections is about the teacher acknowledging the students' ideas, but the fact that the scenario refers to physics subject matter urges some of the informants to make certain reservations: "This is a clear example of teaching starting where the students are interested, if only it was not about Physics & Chemistry!"

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In argumentation about scenarios 2 and 4 reference to students' self-regulation is frequently used (67.9 % /44.1 %).Most teachers are positive, but there are doubtful and negative arguments questioning whether students can handle the free approach.There are not many NoS arguments regarding these two scenarios, but some teachers argue that all students ought to include some kind of experiment in their projects.
In the scenario about recycling many arguments are about this being an important issue: "Bildung in an early age.""It is important to take care of nature.""Bildung to global citizenship."These arguments are coded as pedagogical arguments.This kind of argumentation refers to the so-called 'German didaktik tradition' (Duit, Niedderer and Schecker, 2007;Westbury, Hopmann and Riquarts, 2000).'Bildung' stands for the formation of the learner as a whole person, and in this tradition content chosen must represent some general ideas, for example what the German educator Wolfgang Klafki calls epochal key problems: the general as that which concerns us all in our epoch (Westbury, Hopmann and Riquarts, 2000 p.104).32.3 % of the reflections on this scenario are about the need for students' activity, not just the teacher telling, these arguments contribute to the doubtful and negative statements about the scenario.The reflections include concrete ideas for activities to teach recycling not just by telling.The scenario gaining most negative responses (88.6 %) is the one about the solar system.39.1 % back the argumentation on the fact that the students are not active, 23.4 % felt it was not motivating and 18.9 % pedagogical arguments suggesting other pedagogical approaches: "This I would make project-oriented and it could be a cooperative project with arts." To sum up, particular types of arguments are used more frequently in the argumentation about each of the scenarios, when it comes to whether the teachers are dominantly positive or negative, and the kind of argumentation used to back it.This confirms prior findings, that a single label cannot describe teachers' orientations (Friedrichsen and Dana, 2005).The 7 scenarios trigger in various ways the teachers' reflections, but there is an average picture of the main part of the argumentation being student-centred and about student activity, self-regulation and motivation.The lack of (positive) reference to own SMK, and what can be seen as relatively few arguments referring to NoS even when central in the phrasing of some scenarios is also interesting.The latter is further elucidated below where reflections are separated according to various specializations.

Variation between the specializations
The summed argumentation about scenarios is divided across the four specializations in table 9.

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A Chi-square test shows significant difference in argumentation between Geography and Physics & Chemistry teachers (c 2 =11.71, df=5, r=0.038).Physics & Chemistry teachers never use the argument about lack of SMK and are more likely to ground their arguments in the field of NoS.The average above in table 6 is relatively much influenced by Geography teachers who comprise nearly double the number of Physics teachers in the cohort.Science & Technology teachers, besides having most reflections about activity, also seem to back their arguments in NoS more than Geography and Biology teachers.This is not significant (Geo/S&T: c 2 =10.06, df=5, r=0.071) but when dividing the analysis according to the Tsai categories (table 8) there is a significant difference between Geography and Science & Technology teachers (c 2 =13.79, df=3, r=0.003) and Geography and Physics & Chemistry teachers (c 2 =17.28 , df=3, r=0.0006).Physics & Chemistry and Science & Technology teachers use more process-oriented argumentation than Geography and Biology teachers (P & C: 41 %, S & T: 30 %, Bio: 27 %, Geo: 18 %).

Discussion and conclusions
The discussion will be organized starting with exploring the significance and going behind the results referring to the science teachers' background and reflections on themselves as science teachers and on science teaching, and from there move on to the great variation found in the cohort.

Science background and reflections on themselves as science teachers
The indications of low efficacy beliefs in many of the reflections may raise some concern (Bandura, 1997).Research suggests that SMK is an issue for being an effective science teacher, not more important for teacher effectiveness than knowledge of how to teach (e.g.Darling-Hammond and Youngs, 2002), but low self-efficacy might very well affect the way the teachers will teach primary science, and in the Danish schools a teacher is normally 'counted as' trained to teach primary science with any of the science specializations (the full cohort).Having low self-efficacy in the physics area they might try to navigate around letting primary school students experiment with simple electrical circuits, as made probably by some of the teachers' comments about the bulb scenario: "This sounds dangerous.""I have no subject matter background to answer the question.""No I do not feel competent enough."A lack of belief in their own SMK in physics might therefore hinder these teachers in teaching primary science as it is described in the Danish curriculum; their PCK for teaching simple electrical circuits is affected.Furthermore low efficacy-beliefs about own SMK in the physics and chemistry area might potentially affect biology and geography teachers when teaching in some parts of their own specialisation, as indicated when a biology teacher states: "My limitation in biology is connected to my lack of knowledge in the chemistry area." Variance in background in science before starting teacher training may play a role in the results showing that teachers with Physics & Chemistry are more prepared to teach out of specialization.But Biology and Physics & Chemistry teachers are the ones most alike in their way of arguing about teaching out of specialization (table 5 c) though they differ in background level, and when looking at the reflections on the scenarios it is notable that none of the teachers with Physics & Chemistry use NSMK arguments, independent of background level, gender etc.A clear conclusion on reasons for this pattern goes beyond the empirical background in this study, but self-efficacy as stated seem to be an issue, beside science background.The teachers' low efficacy beliefs attached to physics might go back to how they themselves have experienced different content fields when at school.Negative experiences as learners can result in negative attitudes and apprehension about especially physics teaching, as it is seen in other studies (Abell et al, 1998;Johnston and Ahtee, 2006).Such deeply founded (tacit) experiences might affect student teachers' choice of specialization, so those having negative experiences as learners do not choose 'hard science' (Physics

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[215] 7(2), 2011 & Chemistry and apparently to some degree also Biology).This might also explain the need to explicitly specify, even when not being asked (in an open category) that they have a humanistic background.

Reflections on science teaching
The physics content is clearly seen as especially complicated and difficult, and earth science as easier to cope with.The nature of physics is according to Duit et al. (2007) partly the reason for this being experienced as difficult, counterintuitive and incomprehensible by learners.Physics thinking does not originate from observation of the world around us, but from the reconstruction of this world under the assumption of theoretical principles, this means a very high level of abstraction and idealization (Duit et al, 2007, p.605).In Duit et al. (2007) it is mentioned that especially girls perceive physics as complicated.Gender has only briefly been included in the discussion in this paper, while results have shown no clear differences.Female teachers are overrepresented among those that refer to lack of SMK, when reasoning about the scenarios; 40 % male/60 % female, compared to 52/48 in the cohort, but if taking teachers with Physics and Chemistry out, since none of them use this argument (male or female), it is nearly gender neutral as there are more male Physics and Chemistry specialists.Male teachers with Geography, Biology or Science & Technology use argumentation indicating low efficacy beliefs as much as female teachers, and those female teachers that have Physics and Chemistry seem to argue more like male teacher with this specializations than as female teachers with for example Geography.
To sum up: The teachers in this cohort are not alone in having experiences of physics as a complicated science field, but a large subgroup seems to have so low confidence in this area that it affects how they see scenarios of science teaching, even scenarios related to relatively simple physics subject matter.
In relation to orientations towards science teaching none of the novice Danish science teachers showed indications of a traditionalist transmission orientation in their reflections on the scenarios (Tsai, 2002;Anderson 2007).It is however important that what is seen is the newly qualified teachers' ideals (what they say they want to do), what they actually are going to do in complex and sometimes confusing classroom situations is beyond the scope of the study.Examples where teachers use a transmission approach though expressing a constructivist orientation are well known.
Nevertheless the results confirm the hypothesis that the activity-driven extreme (Abell et al, 1998) is prevalent.In many of the reflections activities are assumed to make science interesting and motivating, with reference to what the students can do, not so often how the students learn; activities is seen as 'the sugar on the pill' (Zahorik, 1996).Science activities surely are important ingredients in contemporary science teaching, but talking science and using science related argumentation is as important and so is a specific focus on students learning of science, which is only seen to a small degree (Bybee, 2006, Abell andMc Donald, 2006).In Andersons' continuum of orientations the average novice Danish science teacher is placed as having a student-centred conception, seeing the student as self-directed learner.This widespread tendency to consider students' motivation can in many ways be seen as a strength in this UC-cohort compared to the teacher-centred thinking about transmission of science seen in some research (e.g.Tsai, 2002), but the continuum of orientations might be better illustrated as a two-dimensional landscape where most Danish UC educated science teachers express student-centred beliefs, but focused on activity not learning.
To sum up: The results point to at least three important issues of concern when looking at the cohort in average: 1) the newly qualified teachers' reference to science subject matter, especially physics, 2) their expression of student-centred beliefs with hands on activities being the issue and 3) their (lack of) considerations about students learning.

Variation in the cohort
When discussing confidence as science teacher in as well physical science as earth and life science expressed indirectly in the readiness to teach out of specialization, rather clear patterns were found as stated above.Physics & Chemistry teachers in the cohort seem to be more alike the secondary teachers in the study of Tsai (2002) in the sense of feeling confident, while Geography and Science & Technology teachers are more alike the primary teachers referred to in other studies (e.g.Abell and McDonald, 2006).
To supplement these conclusions another way to illustrate the great variation found in the cohort is to use the thinking from Max Weber's ideal types: idea-constructs that can help put the chaos of social reality in order (Weber, 1997) to highlight some extremes: • Teachers who have a high level background in science and identify themselves as science teachers in particular.They have mathematics as another specialization beside Physics and Chemistry.They state that their interest developed from their own school experiences and some explicitly express that they love physics.They mainly express a process orientation in the way they argue and some use the expression the scientific method.• Teachers with a low level background in science, who typically use arguments about students' activities being the important thing in primary science, including process-oriented arguments with phrasings about students posing hypotheses etc.They might have chosen Science & Technology specialization, not so much to become a science teacher, but to be able to include science perspectives when working with primary school students and they emphasize activities especially useful in primary science teaching.• Teachers with a low level background in science and an explicitly formulated humanistic profile as the background for choosing Geography.They do not at all see their teacher identity attached to being a science teacher and several express a lack of SMK in the physics area.They often use constructivist-oriented arguments, emphasize "bildung" in their argumentation and refer to students' motivation as backing in argumentation about self-regulated activities.
They might have chosen Geography as a specialization based on interest in cultural and global issues.• Teachers who value outdoor activity for themselves and as a pedagogical approach.Students' self-regulated activities are seen as important and many have sports as another specialization beside Biology.They might always have been interested in science, but not necessarily science in the school system, rather an interest in the 'nature part' of Biology, not 'the chemical part'.It must once again be emphasized that such ideal-types are used to illustrate the wide range of science background and expressed beliefs about teaching and learning science.Many teachers in the cohort are somewhere in between these extremes.

Limitations, implications and perspectives
The present study has its limitations.The nature of the study has been highly explorative due to absence of existing research about Danish UC educated science teachers.In retrospect it might have been helpful to use additional cases/scenarios and qualitative in depth studies may be better suited to study teachers' beliefs and orientations.But regarding the aim to get an average picture, the findings have significant implications both in relation to pre-service and in-service training.
There is no easy way to meet the challenges concerning relatively low background in science and negative beliefs about own SMK, which can create a tension in the development of PCK.Raising admission requirements as in the reforms mentioned above is a reasonable political step, but there might be other ways.We might be able to support development of confidence alongside understanding of subject matter and development of (science specific) pedagogical skills building upon the competences and strengths shown for example in the basic student-centred thinking about teaching and learning science.A clearer understanding of the great variation among science

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[217] 7(2), 2011 teachers, and their associated needs, might also be used to understand how different student teachers and novice teachers might have different learning trajectories in developing PCK for science teaching.

Which parts of this scenario might be expected to trigger in reflections?
o Phrasing pointing to inquiry based methods in science is not used, but inquiry based methods are indicated o Teacher as facilitator when students explore o Physical science o Curriculum, Science & Technology: Give examples of how we produce electricity, examine and describe everyday issues like electricity A cohort of novice Danish science teachers [206] 7(2), 2011

Table 2 :
Data-based categories and codes I know nothing about Physics.This is my weak side, and I would fail as a teacher if I had to teach it.

Table 4 :
Background in science from upper secondary school before beginning teacher training.

Table 4 :
Background in science from upper secondary school before beginning teacher training.

Table 5 :
Arguments used when reflecting on whether you want to teach various science subjects.P is positive arguments, N is negative arguments.SS=Subject Specialization, I=Interest, SA= Students Age, SMK=own Subject Matter Knowledge.All numbers are in %.Table 5 a: Results from asking all teachers what their answer would be if asked to teach the various science subjects and why they gave this answer.Table 5 b: Results from summing the kind of argumentation (overall) used by teachers with each of the four specializations.The three dominant types of argumentation are shown in various grade of shading in both tables.Table 5 c: Chi-square test, p<0.05 is highlighted.

Table 5 a
Arguments used Students' level of activity is used as a warrant in 22 % of the argumentation.Positive arguments in this category are about active school students whereas negative and doubtful arguments are about students being too passive.Main argumentation referring to NoS: "Students at this level can organize such a work themselves."

Table 7 :
Type of argumentation, all teachers on all scenarios, divided in teacher-centred versus student-centred argumentation.

Table 7 :
Type of argumentation, all teachers on all scenarios, divided in teacher-centred versus student-centred argumentation.
A cohort of novice Danish science teachers[212]

Table 8 :
Type of reflections, all teachers on all scenarios

Table 8 :
Type of reflections, all teachers on all scenarios Birgitte Lund Nielsen

Table 9 :
Arguments used by the teachers in reflections on scenarios (summed) divided on specialization in teacher training.All numbers %.Average is calculated based on number of teachers with each specialization.Some results referred to are highlighted.

Table 9 :
Arguments used by the teachers in reflections on scenarios (summed) divided on specialization in teacher training.All numbers %.Average is calculated based on number of teachers with each specialization.