Study On The Present Condition Of Instructional Design Competencies Of Pre-service Biology Teachers

Instructional design competencies are one of the most important parts of the teaching ability. Investigations on the instructional design competencies of the pre-service Biology teachers can not only provide guidance for their professional development, but also are benefit for theoretically improving the quality of personnel training. Moreover, this study will be able to make a certain extent in the theory of instructional design competencies. In order to investigate the instructional design competencies of the pre-service Biology teachers and the dominant factors that affect their teaching ability, the teaching design ability structure for pre-service Biology teachers was initially designed after extensively literature reading. And then we both interviewed and questionnaire survey the pre-service Biology teachers, Grade 4 undergraduates from the College of life science, Central China Normal University. We also analyzed some random samples of their instructional designs and videos using the content analysis method.The data from this study showed that the most pre-service Biology teachers possessed a moderate or higher level of Instructional design competencies. These students got the highest scores in the Instructional design concept session, followed by the knowledge and skills of the Instructional design sessions. They also better understood the Biology knowledge than that for the Instructional design. Instructional design, teaching strategies, determination and the treatments for the Key points, as well as Learner Analysis were considered to be the weakest link in this study. Their instructional cognition and practice are obviously inconsistent. Most interviewees possessed pragmatism for understanding of the instructional design to some extent.We also found several key factors that affect the teaching ability of the pre-service teachers, including practical courses, early learning experience, and multiple external factors.According to the results from this study, the author advised that more practical courses should be constructed in normal universities. The practical parts of the instructional design course should be increased. College pedagogue should pay more attention to training the ability to use theory to guide practice for the Pre-service teachers. Guide should also try to enrich the contents and formats to enhance the Instructional design ability for the pre-service teachers.