This award will enable Professors Charles Coble and Floyd Mattheis of East Carolina University to collaborate with Professor Shigekazu Takemura of Hiroshima University, Japan on a comparative study of American and Japanese science teacher education. The study will gather data on the organizational structure, staffing, and the curriculum used for pre-service and in-service education of teachers of science at the elementary, junior high and senior high levels in the U.S. and Japan. The Japanese and U.S. research teams will synthesize their findings and present the results at a joint conference on Comparative Science Teacher Education in May 1989 to be held in Honolulu, Hawaii. Science educators in the United States have much to learn from a comparative study of American and Japanese teacher education since Japanese students consistently outscore U.S. students on standardized science achievement tests at every pre-college level. The teams, under the direction of Professor Coble and Professor Takemura, are composed of well established and highly respected science educators in both countries.
