#601: Teachers’ Perceptions Change of Scientific Uncertainty as a Pedagogical Resource over a Two-year Professional Development: A Longitudinal Study

This qualitative longitudinal study examines how six in-service science teachers’ perceptions of student uncertainty evolved across two practice-based professional development (P-BPD) programs. Using a teacher uncertainty perceptions framework, we analyzed interviews collected at five stages to trace changes across five dimensions: roles, types, sources, comfort level, and desirability. Teachers showed their most consistent gains in re-positioning uncertainty as a driver of reasoning and in their emotional readiness to sustain it, with five reaching the highest level by study’s end. Desirability also improved as teachers increasingly named relevance, timing, and complexity as conditions for productive struggle. In contrast, integrating conceptual and epistemic uncertainty, and recognizing co-occurring sources (e.g., insufficiency with ambiguity), remained challenging for most participants. These results highlight the value of sustained, situated learning experiences and iterative reflection on classroom practice, and point to design needs for concrete tools that help teachers plan for multiple, interacting uncertainties.