In Taiwan, traditional pedagogy and technique-oriented teaching methods have become too outdated to enable students to fight with a society full of complicated and confusing socio-cultural phenomena. An art education curriculum change is needed, and innovative art programs should be developed with careful consideration of the socio-cultural…

This study examined the patterns of Taiwanese early childhood preservice teachers' professional beliefs about teaching and learning. The instrument included six open-ended questions that examined preservice teachers' perceptions of their roles as teachers, of ways that children learn, and of their relationships with children. Participants were 298…

The Biology Cognitive Preference Inventory (BCPI) for investigating the biology cognitive preference styles of 143 students in the biology teacher education program was developed and validated. The cognitive preferences include factual information or recall, principles, questioning, and applications. Preservice biology teachers exhibited a strong…

This report describes a study which examined group-order managing skills used by early childhood student teachers in Taiwan, how these skills were used, and the level of student teacher satisfaction with these skills. Fifty-six student teachers from a 2-year training program at the National Taipei Teachers College completed an event-recording form…

Identifying the benefit of teaching chemistry through history was the goal of this study that used a quasi-experimental design based on the method of action research. Two groups of students in the last 2 years of a teacher preparation program participated in the study with one group receiving instruction on how to develop and teach chemistry…

Examines the cultural dimension involved in the e-mail correspondence between university English-as-a-foreign-language students in Taiwan and pre-service bilingual English-as-a-Second-Language teachers in the United States. E-mail entries and end-of-project reports were analyzed to yield insights into the cross-cultural information transmitted and…

Compared the teaching efficacy scores and factor structures of early childhood and elementary preservice teachers in Taiwan at the beginning and end of their teacher education programs. Survey results highlighted the influence of cultural and/or social context, program context, and teaching experience on student teachers' efficacy beliefs. There…

This article discusses the Atayal aboriginal kindergarten program in Taiwan, known as the Kui-whai kindergarten program. While teaching a course on "Designing Kindergarten Curriculum" at a teacher-training program in Taiwan, the author realized that she had seven aboriginal preservice teachers in her class; previously she had none. Those…

The purpose of this study was to identify whether the strategy of using hands-on science process skills training in an elementary science methods course was effective in: (1) reducing preservice elementary teachers' (PETs') anxiety about teaching hands-on science activities, and (2) changing PETs' concerns about teaching hands-on science…

Describes teacher education programs in Taiwan and recent changes in the status of teachers' colleges. Points out solutions to two problems in Taiwan's teacher education system: financial incentives for prospective teachers are weak, and the two-level teacher education system is not adequate in terms of contemporary educational philosophy. (SM)

Instructional planning is an essential professional activity often used by teachers. However, some characteristics of existing university-based teacher education programs may hamper pre-service teachers' learning of instructional planning. Thus, this study adopts the cognitive apprenticeship as a theoretical foundation to construct a web-based…

The goals of secondary preservice science teacher education are to prepare future science teachers with competency in both science content knowledge and science teaching ability. The study reported in this paper investigated the development of pedagogical content knowledge of three preservice chemistry teachers in Taiwan during one year of a…

This volume of the Projects for International Education Research (PIER), World Education Series is a study of the structure and content of the education system of Taiwan together with a formal set of placement recommendations based upon the authors' research. The placement recommendations have been reviewed and officially approved by the National…

This article reports on reforms of the science education program for prospective physical science teachers in Taiwan and examines their impact on these teachers. The reforms include restructuring the courses in physical science methods, and requiring all prospective teachers to do action research during their one-year full-time teaching practice.…

This study compared the efficacy beliefs of Taiwanese preservice teachers at the beginning of early childhood teacher preparation with those of preservice teachers near the end of preservice preparation. The 298 predominantly female participants were from 4 teacher colleges and a polytechnic institute. Participants completed a slightly revised…