On Monday, May 11, 2015 three of my students (Trysta Ram, Dahlia Gatoloai, and Abraham Garcia) presented our research on preservice teachers’ conformity to science curriculum at the 1st Undergraduate Research Conference in Psychology at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. Their hard work and preparation payed off, and they did a wonderful job. It was a great opportunity for us to mingle with students and faculty from UH and UCLA and great practice for Trysta and Dahlia in preparation for presenting our poster at APS next week. Kyle Madsen, another one of our BYU-Hawaii psychology students also presented his senior research project at the conference. I was glad we were able to represent BYU-Hawaii at the conference.

Abraham Garcia, Dahlia Gatoloai, Trysta Ram, & Dr. Brian Kinghorn

Presentation Info from the program

“Information and Normative Conformity in Elementary Science Teaching: Preservice Teachers View Curriculum as a Powerful Authority Figure”
Ram, T, Gatoloai-Dahl, D., & Garcia, A.
Advisor: Dr. Brian Kinghorn

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Completed Research

ABSTRACT
New elementary teachers often lack adequate science subject matter knowledge and may hesitate to challenge curriculum when it is incorrect. When teachers recognize errors in curriculum and still teach it “as is” they may be engaging in informational or normative conformity. Participants in this study included four female preservice teachers at a small private liberal arts university who had previously taken a science methods course. Each participant was administered a pre- and post test including 15 physical science questions. After preparing for 30 minutes, each participant then conducted a 30 minute review session of the pre-test with their peers who were confederates in the study. The test key included three intentional recognizable content errors. Follow-up interviews addressed whether the teacher recognized the errors, whether she experienced cognitive conflict when teaching the trick questions, and whether and why she either chose to conform to the curriculum or fix the error. In 11 of the 12 cases (3 per teacher), regardless of their pretest scores, the teachers experienced some mental conflict between the given answer and the actual correct answer. Ten cases were informational conformity and one was normative conformity. In two cases the teacher eventually changed her answer. Additionally, with the exception of the three trick questions, all of the teachers had improved post test scores. We conclude that curriculum was a powerful authority figure for these teachers in ways that were both educative and detrimental to their conceptual understanding.

After the conference we explored the UH campus and found the Fallen War Memorial which was carved by Tuione Pulotu (my brother’s father-in-law). On the way home we took a short hike through a bamboo forest to the King Kamehameha III summer home.

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