Shifting the lens: exploring the evolution of pre-service teachers’ epistemic frames in online STEM education

The Monash Virtual School (MVS) represents an innovative approach in delivering free online STEM education to K-12 students, particularly focusing on disadvantaged and underrepresented young women. Diverging from typical studies on online STEM education’s impact on students, our research shifts focus towards future educators, examining their evolving knowledge, skills, values, identities, and epistemologies. Central to our study is the concept of epistemic frames, crucial for developing and refining MVS’s interactive, team-taught lessons. We adopted Quantitative Ethnography (QE), integrating quantitative and qualitative methods, and used Epistemic Network Analysis (ENA) for in-depth insights into pre-service teachers’ professional growth. Our investigation began by assessing the strength of connections within individual pre-service teachers’ epistemic frames, then exploring collaborative dynamics between teacher pairs. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews before and after teaching experiences, analysed using ENA web tool, version 1.7.0. Preliminary findings showed significant developments in the teachers’ epistemic frames, prompting further interviews across the academic year. These revealed five key situated learning processes: induction, transferability, interdependence, synchronicity, and negotiability, each instrumental in the observed shifts. This research highlights ENA’s limitations and the necessity of closing the interpretive loop in QE. It also underscores the importance of preparing future educators and the value of integrated research methodologies.