Teaching Topic Preferences in the Nature–Human–Society Subject: How Trainee Teachers Justify Their Likes and Dislikes

Abstract

This study focuses on the description and explanation of trainee teachers’ attitudes in specific educational situations. More precisely, it demonstrates the reasons why they prefer to teach certain Nature–Human–Society topics over others and, conversely, why they do not like teaching some of those topics—particularly science topics relating to physics and technology. The description of these arguments is relevant because trainee teachers’ attitudes can have an impact on later teacher behavior, especially in a multidisciplinary subject such as Nature—Human–Society, where different topics can be given different amounts of time and importance in class. The results of this study are based on a survey of a student cohort in teacher training in Switzerland. The arguments for liking or disliking a total of twelve teaching topics in the subject Nature–Human–Society were elicited through open-ended questions and theoretically assigned to three attitude dimensions—cognitive beliefs, affective access, and perceived control—following qualitative content analysis. Differences in the reasons for liking and disliking certain teaching topics are shown, as well as the general finding that liking teaching topics is primarily based on cognitive beliefs, while disliking teaching topics is primarily attributed to lacking perceived control or lacking affective access to trainee teachers.

1. Introduction

Curricula form the framework for learning in schools. They define the goals, competence expectations, and standards that children should achieve in a certain educational institution. However, as important as these written guidelines are, they only develop their full effect through the people who implement them: the teachers. As the direct interface between theory and practice, they play a key role in the design of lessons. They interpret the curriculum guidelines, select suitable teaching methods, and adapt teaching materials to the individual needs of their learners. Thus, they can contribute significantly to the quality of teaching by creating effective learning opportunities and optimal conditions for child development [1,2,3,4]. Conversely, it is also important to recognize that their choices and actions can also have a detrimental impact on pupils’ outcomes. The example of science education clearly demonstrates that, despite the increased demand for early science education in recent years, which is also reflected in kindergarten and primary school curricula, the reality of classroom instruction is sometimes different. Research has consistently shown that the teacher’s attitude toward science significantly influences their teaching practices and their willingness to teach science. This means that the extent to which certain science content and methods are thought of and integrated into the subject lessons is highly dependent on the individual teachers [2,4,5,6]. Given the research indicating that a significant number of elementary and primary teachers possess negative attitudes towards science education, it is evident that this is a widespread rather than an isolated issue. Teacher training programs must therefore effectively address this issue by cultivating positive attitudes in trainee teachers and thereby empowering science education in kindergarten and primary schools [2,4,6,7].

While the curricula for primary education of some countries primarily focus on integrating the natural sciences (biology, chemistry, and physics) into one subject, others take a broader approach, incorporating elements of social studies, geography, and even history into one subject—as in Switzerland, where science is taught in the subject Nature–Human–Society [8]. Nature–Human–Society is a unique and relatively new subject in the Swiss educational landscape. The subject “Natur–Mensch–Gesellschaft”, as it was originally named and abbreviated as NMG, was established throughout Switzerland in 2016 with the introduction of a common curriculum. Formerly, there were similar subject areas in several cantons, but they often had different names, focuses, and disciplinary compositions. The educational area of Nature–Human–Society was created as a multidisciplinary subject from Swiss kindergarten to primary school, extending to the sixth grade. It comprises four content areas: (I) Nature and Technology, (II) Economics, Work, Housekeeping, (III) Geography, History, Societies, and (IV) Ethics, Religions, Community. All four content areas are concerned with the world that surrounds people. The term world refers here to the natural, economic, cultural, and social environment. According to the Swiss curriculum, as early as kindergarten and primary school, children should engage with this world by observing, investigating, classifying, and understanding various phenomena so that they can ultimately participate actively in this world and act responsibly toward their living environment in the future [1,9,10,11].

The Swiss primary school children who were interviewed about Nature–Human–Society lessons generally saw it as an interesting and attractive subject. Many pupils also named it as one of their favorite subjects. Furthermore, most of the pupils surveyed attached great importance to this subject, believing that the content of this subject is relevant to their current lives and will help them later in life. However, some pupils also stated that their attitude towards NMG lessons depends on their interest in the topics covered in class. In an exploratory longitudinal study, which surveyed the same children at the beginning of the first, third, fifth, and seventh grades, it was found that the general elevated interest in various NMG topics tends to decrease slowly from the lower grades to the higher grades. However, over this period of primary school, some subject areas continuously emerge as areas of great interest for many of the children, namely topics about animals, astronomy, phenomena of inanimate nature, and technology [12] (see Figure 1).

When asked about the reasons pupils are particularly interested in certain Nature–Human–Society topics, interest in fascinating, exciting, adventurous, and mysterious themes was frequently cited. The curiosity to know what has already been discovered about phenomena seemed to characterize their choices [12]. These results can be well integrated into Krapp’s theory [13,14] of interest, which offers a comprehensive framework for comprehending the intricate connections between an individual and an object of interest. According to this person–object theory of interest, there are three characterized aspects that influence the involvement and engagement of learning things: (I) when the subject or a possible action derived from it has a high subjective value for the pupil (value aspect), (II) when dealing with the subject matter or a possible action derived from it is associated with positive feelings for the learner (emotional aspect), and (III) when the learner wants to ascertain and learn more about the matter (cognitive aspect).

In conjunction with the intrinsic motivation of pupils, driven by internal factors such as curiosity, interest, and personal satisfaction [15,16], the role of teachers in inspiring and nurturing pupils’ motivation is crucial in kindergarten and primary school. A teacher’s enthusiasm and interest in the subject matter can promote the children’s situational interest in the various subject matters since these teacher variables have a decisive influence on creating a motivating learning arrangement [17,18,19,20,21]. However, if we look at trainee teachers surveys [22,23,24,25,26], it becomes clear that their attitudes towards Nature–Human–Society topics are somewhat different. In contrast to primary school pupils, trainee teachers are often not very fond of the physical–technical area and, conversely, usually have a greater interest in social–ethical topics than the pupils in the study described above.

A qualitative exploratory study [27] with Swiss teacher candidates already revealed why specific teaching topics within Natural–Human–Society were particularly engaging. According to these findings, identity formation for trainee teachers is an indispensable topic in Nature–Human–Society lessons. The obvious importance of identity building can probably be attributed to the life phase of later adolescence, the phase with which the surveyed trainee teachers were concerned and the questions they themselves presumably dealt with most. In this context, trainee teachers often stated that children’s learning should take place concentrically, starting from the individual in the center and then moving towards the outside world. It was also noticeable that trainee teachers sometimes had an unusual concept of the living environment. The forest, for example, was seen as being related to life, while electricity was not. Moreover, the human–environment relationship was mentioned as a central topic among the trainee teachers, with teaching perspectives about environmental protection being considered particularly important [27]. The value placed on environmental protection and sustainability can be seen as an expression of a global identity that is currently on the rise and is held in respect by many adolescents and adults, and thus also by several trainee teachers [28].

A variety of quantitative studies have also delved into the reasons behind the popularity and unpopularity of subjects among future teachers of primary education [22,23,24,25,26]. Now we will briefly summarize the current state of research specifically focusing on studies on trainee teachers’ attitudes within the Nature–Human–Society field (for more details, please see [23,24,25,26]). Given the established link between knowledge, ability self-concept, and interest, these variables were the focus of research on trainee teachers’ attitudes regarding the teaching of Nature–Human–Society topics [23,25]. In addition, personality-specific characteristics of trainee teachers, specifically the Big Five personality traits, as well as Hollands’ six types of vocational personalities, were subject to more in-depth analysis [24,26]. Research findings demonstrated that trainee teachers have a generally pronounced social and artistic interest, as well as a higher Big Five extraversion score, which was linked to teaching topic preferences for people-related topics and, conversely, implicated that thing-oriented topics are rather unpopular with trainee teachers [24,26]. Higher confidence in teaching thing-related topics such as physics and technology topics among trainee teachers correlated closely with higher realistic and investigative interests, lower Big Five neuroticism scores, as well as a better general knowledge of science and technology [25]. In contrast to natural sciences topics, it turned out that in humanities and social sciences topics, there was no correlation between general knowledge of humanities and social sciences and the perceived capability of trainee teachers towards those teaching topics. This indicated that the popularity of teaching such topics does not depend on one’s own knowledge and on the related ability self-concepts of these subject areas but more on the affective-evaluative part of attitude and thus on their affinity for these topics [23].

Generally, it is widely recognized that the attitude concept is a multidimensional construct, being influenced by three main elements: a cognitive component (thoughts and beliefs), an affective component (feelings and emotions), and a behavioral component (tendencies to act) [29]. According to a new theoretical framework for explicitly describing primary teachers’ attitudes toward teaching science, which was developed after reviewing and theoretically evaluating attitude concepts in previous studies, the following three crucial components are decisive for the formation of attitudes in science teaching: (I) cognitive beliefs (perceived relevance, perceived difficulty, and gender beliefs), (II) affective states (enjoyment and anxiety), and (III) perceived control (self-efficacy and perceived dependency on context factors) [30]. However, it is unclear whether this theoretical framework can also be applied to other teaching contexts or subject matters.

This research aims to explore trainee teachers’ own arguments for favoring or disliking certain teaching topics in Nature–Human–Society, thus determining the specific aspects that characterize attitudes regarding different subject areas of Nature–Human–Society before teacher training takes place in order to exert targeted training if necessary. It is intended to supplement existing findings from quantitative studies, providing a deeper understanding of the reasons for the popularity and unpopularity of the different Nature–Human–Society topics. Until now, no previous study has used open-ended questions to ask trainee teacher students to give the reasons for both popular and unpopular topics in the Nature–Human–Society subject. Such an approach was chosen at this time to comprehensively record the perspectives of the individual participants, letting them express their assertions for themselves [31]. Thus, this study aims to uncover nuances in a way that is difficult to chronicle from solely quantitative studies.

Consequently, the following research question guided this research:

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How do trainee teachers justify their likes and dislikes for Nature–Human–Society teaching topics?

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Are there arguments for liking and, respectively, disliking teaching topics that are more pronounced in some teaching topics of Nature–Human–Society than others, or can a similar pattern of argumentation be found in all Nature–Human–Society topics?

To achieve the research aims, a study with newcomer trainee teachers for kindergartens and primary schools at a university of teacher education in Switzerland was conducted. Initially, for descriptive statistics, an explanation was given on how the sample’s affection, experience, and perceived capability regarding various teaching domains of the subject Nature–Human–Society were composed (see Section 3.1), and which teaching topics in Nature–Human–Society are favored and disfavored by the trainee teachers (see Section 3.2). Subsequently, the analysis of reasons for or against teaching certain topics of Nature–Human–Society was shown from the perspective of the surveyed trainee teachers (see Section 3.3 and Section 3.4). Finally, the identified argumentation patterns were compared across all Nature–Human–Society topics (see Section 3.3, Section 3.4 and Section 4).

Thus, this study is designed to deepen our comprehension of pre-service teachers’ attitudes towards various subject areas of social and natural sciences. By pinpointing the root causes of positive and negative attitudes, we aim to illuminate pathways for enhancing these attitudes within teacher education programs. In the literature [6], there is widespread agreement that attitude-focused approaches in trainee teacher courses may provide fertile ground for evolving or stabilizing teachers’ attitudes. Cultivating self-awareness of pre-service teachers’ existing attitudes and fostering reflection during their training is a crucial step in this direction.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Sample

The sample included all first-year students in the primary education program at the University of Teacher Education Bern (Switzerland) who voluntarily agreed to participate in this study. The aim was to have as complete a cohort as possible, although a less-than-complete response rate was expected. Of the group that consisted of 309 students (83% female and 17% male), 220 students participated (84.1% female and 15.9% male) in the entire survey, representing a response rate of 71.2% and reflecting the gender disbalance fairly since the predominance of female participants is a general characteristic of study cohorts for primary education [32].

The average age of the participants was 23.26 years (SD = 6.3; Min = 18; Max = 50), with the age of 20 being the most frequently occurring score (mode) and the age of 21 as the median. The participating students came to the teacher training program from different educational or professional backgrounds, whereby 59.6% of the participants had a high school degree. The chosen focus of study within teacher training also differed among the participants. Overall, 44.1% of the participants were enrolled in the study focus “cycle 1: teaching kindergarten to grade 2” and 55.9% in the study focus “cycle 2: teaching grades 3 to 6”.

2.2. Data Collection and Instruments

For this cross-sectional study, the first-year students of the primary education program were invited to take part in an online survey during the first week of the semester as part of the Nature–Human–Society course. Participation in the anonymous survey was voluntary and lasted about 20 min. The following sections describe the content of the survey.

2.2.1. Q-Sort: Favorite Content to Teach Within the Subject of Nature–Human–Society

At the beginning of the survey, students were asked to choose three topics they would like to teach most from a list of twelve teaching topics of the Nature–Human–Society subject. Then, the students were asked to indicate which three topics from this list they liked least. The topics on the list were as follows: (1) Thinking about oneself, (2) Being with others, (3) Religions and traditions, (4) How products were produced, (5) Life in earlier generations, (6) My hometown, (7) Earth, and how people live in other places, (8) Animals, woods, fields, ponds, and flowers, (9) Sun, moon, stars, and universe, (10) Water, air, weather, and stones, (11) Technology, electricity, and inventions, and (12) Substances and their properties [33].

2.2.2. Open Questions to Justify Topic Preferences or Aversions

After the ranking of popularity/unpopularity was completed by the students, they were asked to state why they liked or disliked teaching these topics. Students could give up to three reasons per topic, formulating their own answers and having to give a justification for a total of six topics (the selected three preferred teaching topics and the selected three unpreferred teaching topics).

2.2.3. Nature–Human–Society Questionnaire (NMG Questionnaire)

To obtain general information on students’ assessments of the different Nature–Human–Society content areas, the NMG Questionnaire was used [25]. It is a standardized self-report instrument for Swiss kindergarten and primary school trainee teachers and in-service teachers that asks them to rate the same nine items for each of the following seven Nature–Human–Society content domains: social/ethical, cultural/religious, historical/political, geographical, economic, physical/technical, and biological. Thus, in total, there were 63 items that the students had to rate on a 5-point Likert scale, with the number 1 meaning “strongly disagree” and the number 5 “agree strongly”.

For the evaluation, the items, three each, were combined into three scales, which are as follows: Experience, Affection, and Perceived Capability. Thus, these trainee teacher characteristics could be specified for each individual content area of the Nature–Human–Society subject. The scale Experience referred to positive memories and familiar experiences acquired in formal and informal learning settings, the scale Attitude to positive feelings and affinity to a specific content area, and the scale Perceived Capability to self-efficacy beliefs in the field of disciplinary knowledge and the ability to accumulate and impart knowledge. In the questionnaire evaluation, the Cronbach’s alphas of the three subscales (Experience, Affection, and Perceived Capability) of all Nature–Human–Society content areas ranged between 0.68 and 0.88 [34].

2.3. Data Analyses

In an SPSS data file, the raw data of the online questionnaire were inserted and initially screened for error outliers or random tick marks to determine the possible questionnaires to be evaluated. Then, general descriptive analyses were performed on the demographic variables to obtain information about the sample composition.

For each Nature–Human–Society domain, the related single items of the NMG Questionnaire were converted into three scales (Experience, Affection, and Perceived Capability) and the Cronbach’s alphas were calculated [35]. Furthermore, detailed descriptive statistics [36] were specified for the experience, affection, and perceived capability variables towards the different Nature–Human–Society teaching areas. For every scale (Experience, Affection, and Perceived Capability), the data of the seven content domains were then z-transformed. Thus, it was possible to explore which content-domain expression was more or less pronounced compared to the total score of Nature–Human–Society (see Section 3.1). Which Nature–Human–Society topics among trainee teachers were generally most popular to teach and which were the least popular topics to teach was deduced based on the data of the individuals’ ranking of the three favorite and the three disliked teaching topics (see Section 3.2).

The reasons why certain teaching topics were preferred or rejected were elicited with open-ended questions, so the freely formulated answers of the trainee teachers had to be analyzed qualitatively in terms of content [37]. The length of the answers varied between one and three statements per teaching topic, as it was up to the trainee teachers how many reasons they gave (a maximum of three). The categories for the reasons to like or dislike teaching topics were originally developed from the data material. For this purpose, the answers were examined individually and assigned to one or more categories (maximum three reasons per topic) depending on the content. The category names and definitions were gradually refined or supplemented during the analysis process in order to describe the category as accurately as possible for all topics, including indications of anchor examples. In this process, care was taken to ensure that the categories were separable; otherwise, categories were streamlined by combining categories with related content into larger categories. In the content coding, numbers were assigned to the answers so that a quantitative evaluation of the frequency of the individual categories could finally be made. In the second step of control analysis, which was conducted by a second researcher, the categories already developed were used to evaluate the data a second time. This double coding, independent from the first evaluation, was conducted to ensure the intersubjective traceability (reliability) of the category assignment. In this way, possible categories that may not have been assigned uniformly to an answer could be checked again and clarified together. After the categorization, the absolute frequencies per category were calculated to indicate how strongly the categories for liking and, respectively, disliking were used as arguments across all twelve teaching topics. Since the number of statements per teaching topic varied, the relative frequencies of categories were used to highlight the top three arguments per teaching topic in a figure. This made it possible to identify similar or dissimilar main arguments across the twelve topics (see Section 3.3 and Section 3.4).

3. Results

3.1. Trainee Teachers’ Expressions About Nature–Human–Society Domains

The internal consistencies of all Experience scales, Affection scales, and Perceived Capability scales ranged from 0.74 to 0.94. In addition to Cronbach’s alpha,

Table 1. Cronbach’s alphas, means, and standard deviations of Experiences, Affections, and Perceived Capabilities (Per. Cap.) in the individual Nature–Human–Society domains; n = 220.

Content Domain	Experience α	Experience M (SD)	Affection α	Affection M (SD)	Per. Cap. α	Per. Cap. M (SD)
Social–ethical	0.841	3.66 (0.87)	0.922	4.07 (0.82)	0.885	3.67 (0.81)
Cultural–religious	0.807	3.41 (0.93)	0.908	3.73 (0.94)	0.869	3.56 (0.88)
Historical–political	0.794	3.23 (0.96)	0.897	3.64 (0.91)	0.838	3.35 (0.93)
Geographical	0.847	3.63 (0.88)	0.929	3.89 (0.80)	0.874	3.63 (0.84)
Economic	0.836	2.65 (0.89)	0.899	2.89 (0.89)	0.878	2.89 (0.89)
Physical–technical	0.869	2.79 (1.00)	0.937	3.01 (1.06)	0.738	3.20 (0.84)
Biological	0.828	4.09 (0.79)	0.926	4.34 (0.75)	0.889	4.01 (0.83)

also shows the mean scores and standard deviation for each individual subscale referring to the seven content domains of the Nature–Human–Society subject. The minimum and maximum of all subscales was between 2.65 and 4.34 (Likert scales ranged between 1 = low and 5 = high).

To compare the characteristics in the different Nature–Human–Society domains, the standard values of Experience, Affection, and Perceived Capability scales were calculated and presented in Figure 2. It emerged that trainee teachers’ experiences, affections, and perceived capabilities in the biological, social–ethical, and geographical areas were above average, while these values were clearly below average in the economics and physics–technology fields. The experiences, affections, and perceived capabilities regarding cultural–religious and historical–political domains were balanced equally, with a slight upward tendency for the former and a slight downward tendency for the latter.

Furthermore, the three-bar expressions of each content domain indicate that trainee teachers’ experience, affection, and perceived capability are quite homogeneously pronounced within the content domains.

3.2. Trainee Teachers’ Popularity Ranking of Teaching Topics

From the list of twelve Nature–Human–Society teaching topics, the three most favored were “Earth, and how people live in other places” (110 favor votes), “Animals, woods, fields, ponds, and flowers” (97 favor votes), and “Life in earlier generations” (89 favor votes), while the three most disliked were “Substances and their properties” (125 dislike votes), “Technology, electricity, and inventions” (124 dislike votes), and “My hometown” (82 dislike votes). For each teaching topic, Figure 3 shows what percentage of students chose this topic as a favored or disliked teaching topic (each student was allowed to indicate three favored and three disliked topics). The results in Figure 2 also show that, generally, those teaching topics that were most popular also tended to receive the fewest unpopularity votes and vice versa. This also applies to the fourth-liked topic, “Being with others”, where the popular/unpopular ratio shows a clear direction toward popular (74 votes in favor, 17 votes not in favor). Furthermore, the presented results evidenced which teaching topics are ranked in the middle of the popularity list, with the proportion for popular or unpopular being less than one-third and a more balanced relationship between popular/unpopular in each case, for example, “Thinking about oneself” (46 favor votes, 64 dislike votes), “Religions and traditions” (54 favor votes, 61 dislike votes), “Sun, moon, stars, and universe” (61 favor votes, 34 dislike votes), “How products were produced” (33 favor votes, 51 dislike votes), and “Water, air, weather, and stones” (30 favor votes, 45 dislike votes).

3.3. Trainee Teachers’ Arguments for Favoring Teaching Topics

Table 2. Category system for favoring topics. The categories are color-coded to match Figure 4.

	Category	Category Definition	Anchor Example
A	High relevance to everyday life	Statements describing knowledge of this topic as generally relevant to life.	“It is important for life.” “This is relevant to everyday life.”
B	Possibility of illustrative or action-oriented teaching	Statements focusing on favoring a lesson design.	“Here the children can experience a lot for themselves in class.”
C	Personal interest	Statements expressing the trainee teacher’s general interest in the topic.	“I like that.” “I have always enjoyed that.”
D	Promotion of prosocial behavior	Statements considering social skills to be important to promote.	“Children should learn how to deal with others. Empathy is important.”
E	Significant shift in perspective	Statements expressing that children should broaden their own horizons.	“Children should look beyond their usual sphere of experience.”
F	Important to build up background knowledge	Statements that children should develop a deeper understanding.	“It is important that children understand why/how…”
G	To build up awareness and appreciation	Statements of ethical awareness and appreciation development.	“These are topics where children need to be sensitized.”
H	Important for personality development	Statements referring to the importance of self-reflection and self-esteem.	“Children should reflect themselves.” “They should build self-confidence.”
I	Value of sustainability and environmental protection	Statements valuing the protection of nature and sustainable development.	“Education for environmental sustainability is important.”
J	Children’s interest and experiences given	Statements showing that children are intrinsically motivated.	”Because that fascinates children.” “Because children like to do it.”
K	Fascination for the unknown	Statements indicating it is exciting to learn more about something unknown.	“I would like to know more about the unknown/unexplored.”
L	High ability—self-concept	Statements that they feel competent about the issues of this topic.	“I know this [content area] well.” “I am confident that I can teach it.”

shows what kind of statements the trainee teachers made that led to the formation of twelve categories with arguments for liking a teaching topic. For each category, we specify the included statements and provides anchor examples.

A total of 1278 category assignments were made. The most frequently cited reason for choosing a topic as one of the three favorite teaching topics was “High relevance to everyday life” (A), followed by “Possibility of illustrative or action-oriented teaching” (B) and “Personal interest” (C). Further reasons, according to the frequency with which they were mentioned, were “Promotion of prosocial behavior” (D), “Significant shift in perspective” (E), “Important to build up background knowledge” (F), “To build up awareness and appreciation” (G), “Important for personality development” (H), “Value of sustainability and environmental protection” (I), “Children’s interest and experience given” (J), “Fascination for the unknown” (K), and “High ability self-concept” (L). The exact number of mentions assigned to these categories is shown in Figure 4.

For each teaching topic, Figure 5 indicates which three categories of arguments for liking a certain teaching topic were most pronounced. The top three categories represent between 55 and 100 percent of the trainee teachers’ statements in each teaching topic. This means that for some teaching topics, these three categories have almost a full informative value, while for other teaching topics, the reason for popularity is more multi-layered than what is covered by the three categories. The average coverage for reasons in the top three categories is 74 percent.

Focusing on the second research question, we looked at the distribution of the categories across all teaching topics, showing in which teaching topic the categories appeared as the top three arguments and in which they did not. The category “High relevance to everyday life” (A) made it most often into the top three arguments, with the exception of the teaching topic “Sun, moon, stars, and universe” and “How products were built”. The second category most often chosen, “Possibility for illustrative or action-oriented teaching” (B), was found among the top three arguments for liking a teaching topic, except for the teaching topics “Religions and traditions” and “Thinking about oneself”. The category “Personal interest” (C) was also in the top three arguments for many teaching topics but not for “Technology, electricity, and interventions”, “My hometown”, “How products were built”, “Religions and traditions”, “Being with others”, and “Thinking about oneself”. The category “Promotion of prosocial behavior” (D) was present among the top three arguments for liking the teaching topics “Religions and Traditions”, “Being with others”, and “Thinking about oneself”. The category “Significant shift in perspective” (E) seemed to be a frequent argument, especially for the topics “Earth, and how people live in other places” and “Religions and traditions”.

The category “Important to build up background knowledge” (F) only made it into the top three arguments for one topic, namely “Technology, electricity, and interventions”. The category “To build up awareness and appreciation” (G) is represented twice among the top three arguments, namely in the teaching topics “My hometown” and “How products were built”. The category “Importance for personality development” (H) was among the top three arguments for the topic “Thinking about oneself”. The category “Value of sustainability and environmental protection” (I) appeared in only one topic in the top three arguments, namely “How products were built”. The category “Children’s interest and experiences given” (J) did not make it into the top three arguments for any of the teaching topics but was most likely to play a role in favoring the topics “Animals, woods, fields, and flowers” and “Sun, moon, stars, and universe”. The category “Fascination for the unknown” (K) was particularly frequent in the topic “Sun, moon, stars, and universe” and was also among the top three arguments. The category “High ability self-concept” (L) did not emerge in the top three arguments in any of the teaching topic fields but appeared infrequently in the topics “Sun, moon, stars, and universe”, “Animals, wood, fields, and flowers”, and “Water, air, weather, and stones”.

In the following list, only the most evident argument for each teaching topic was highlighted and illustrated with examples from their respective topic. The description of the main argument for preferring a topic is listed according to its popularity ranking:

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The teaching topic “Earth, and how people live in other places”, which emerged as the most popular topic to teach among the trainee teacher group, was justified in its popularity most often by a “Significant shift in perspective” (category E), i.e., “It should be shown to the children that there is not only Switzerland. Getting to know other cultures and habitats, and thus broadening their horizons is enriching. It gives them the opportunity to question what they are used to.”

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The most common reason for preferring to teach the second favorite topic, “Animals, woods, field, ponds, and flowers” was the “Personal interest” (category C), i.e., “Because I am very interested in animals and how to deal with them. I also like being in nature, observing the landscape and agriculture. But most of all, I love animals. I have some myself. Biology was my favorite subject at school.”

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For the third favorite teaching topic, “Life in earlier generations”, the argument of “High relevance to everyday life” (category A) was most often crucial for favoring to teach it, i.e., “To understand today’s state of affairs, I think it is necessary to take a look at the past. The past has influenced the present and will also influence the future. It is important that children also know what the world was like when they were not around. Thus, the children see how the world has changed and is still changing.”

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The popularity of teaching the fourth-ranked topic, “Being with others”, was most often justified with the “Promotion of prosocial behavior” (category D), i.e., “Children will always have to deal with different people, so they should learn how to approach others politely and openly. Learning to respect each other is also beneficial to the classroom climate.”

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For the fifth-ranked teaching topic, “Sun, moon, stars, and universe”, the argument of “Personal interest” (category C) was most often dominant for favoring to teach it, i.e., “I find it fascinating how small we are compared to the universe. The darkness of the universe is beautiful on one side and scary on the other. I personally find the universe extremely exciting and wanted to study astrophysics once.”

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The popularity of the teaching topic in sixth place in the popularity list, “Religions and traditions”, was justified most often with “Promotion of prosocial behavior” (category D), i.e., “I would like to teach it to convey understanding and acceptance for other religions and customs so that perhaps at some point issues such as racism or hatred between different religions lose their relevance and we learn to live and let live.”

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The top argument for liking to teach the seventh-favorite topic, “Thinking about oneself”, was that it is “Important for personality development” (category H), i.e., “So that the children get time to get to know themselves, find out what they can do well and thereby possibly gain greater self-confidence. And then also dare to speak their mind in this world.”

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The eighth-ranked topic, “How products were produced”, was most often liked due to its possibility “To build up awareness and appreciation” (category G), i.e., “Because we people often do not know the process behind it and rarely deal with it. This could promote consumer awareness. Children should understand, for example, that there are many production steps and transportation routes behind a t-shirt that we wear and that cheap t-shirts are linked to questionable working conditions and low wages.”

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The teaching topic “Water, air, weather, and stones” was ranked in ninth place and was liked by trainee teachers most often due to “Personal interest” (category C), i.e., “There are exciting natural phenomena to this. I am interested in it. Even as a child I found it positive in class. Recently I have delved more deeply into this content and again have found it pleasurable.”

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The tenth-ranked teaching topic, “Technology, electricity, and inventions”, was favored to be taught most often because it is “Important to build up background knowledge” (category F), i.e., “We live in a modern technological world, which is why I think it is also important to understand the background of new technology. Children should develop an understanding of how such machines/devices etc. work.”

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The most common reason for liking the eleventh-ranked teaching topic, “My hometown”, was the “Possibility of illustrative or action-oriented teaching” (category B), i.e., “Even in their own town there is still a lot for children to discover. You can make excursions nearby, such as visiting a farm. Children’s learning can take place outside the classroom with this theme.”

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The twelfth and thus last-ranked teaching topic in the popularity list was “Substances and their properties”. It was liked most often from trainee teachers with a “Personal interest” (category C), i.e., “I am interested in chemistry. Personally, I find it very interesting to do experiments.”

Generally, it must be mentioned that the number of arguments on the teaching topics naturally varies, as certain topics appealed to more trainee teachers (see Figure 3) than others and were therefore subject to more or less frequent argumentation by trainee teachers (see Figure 5). When a person expressed a preference for a particular topic, the average number of reasons given for this preference of the categories described above was 1.94.

In total, only three arguments of categories were found in the sample for liking the teaching topic “Substances and their properties” (expressed categories: A–C), five categories for liking the teaching topic “Thinking about oneself” (expressed categories: A–C, F, and G), seven categories for liking the teaching topics “Water, air, weather, and stones” (expressed categories: A–E, H, and J) and “Technology, electricity, and inventions” (expressed categories: A–E, H, and J), and eight categories for liking the teaching topic “Being with others” (expressed categories: A–C, E–G, I, and K). Furthermore, nine categories were classified for the teaching topics “Life in earlier generations” (expressed categories: all except E, G and L), “My hometown” (expressed categories: all except F, G, and L), “Animals, woods, fields, ponds, and flowers” (expressed categories: all except F, G, and L), and “Sun, moon, stars, and universe” (expressed categories: all except F, G, and K). Finally, ten categories were assigned for liking the teaching topics “How products were produced” (expressed categories: all except D and F) and “Earth, and how people live in other places” (expressed categories: all except D and G), and eleven categories for liking the teaching topic “Religions and traditions” (expressed categories: all except G).

Based on these results, it can be said that teaching topics that were generally extremely popular and therefore subject to justification by many trainee teachers did not always have more arguments than those topics that were less popular. Rather, it seemed to depend on how many different arguments were expressed by trainee teachers.

3.4. Trainee Teachers’ Arguments for Disliking Teaching Topics

Table 3. Category system for arguments as to why a teaching topic is disliked. The categories (a–i) are color-coded to match Figure 6.

	Category	Category Definition	Anchor Example
a	Personal disinterest	Statements expressing the trainee teacher’s general disinterest.	“[It] doesn’t really interest me.” “I am not interested in that”.
b	Lack of conceptual knowledge	Statements of lack of knowledge or describing it as difficult and complex.	“I lack the knowledge here.” “I do not know the field well…”
c	Lack of ideas for teaching	Statements focusing on the lack of ideas/possibilities for lesson design.	“I don’t see how you could teach this in an exciting way.”
d	Lack of fit for age group	Statements that the topics are too difficult or uninteresting for children.	“Is still too difficult for the age group.” “Children are not interested in that.”
e	Low ability—self-concept for teaching	Statements that they do not feel competent about this issue.	“I wouldn’t know how to teach this.” “I don’t trust myself to do that.”
f	Lack of relevance for everyday life	Statements that knowledge of this topic is generally not relevant to life.	“There are more important issues.” “I don’t see its relevance to everyday life”.
g	Part of extracurricular or general education	Statements referring to it as a general or extracurricular education topic.	“This topic is the parents’ responsibility.” “Can be addressed elsewhere”.
h	Afraid of delicate topic	Statements that topics are delicate to address, because they are very personal.	“It is a sensitive topic. I am afraid of hurting someone’s feelings.”
i	Lack of science-based facts	Statements of beliefs that the topic is insufficiently knowledge-based.	“Knowledge is still changing in this field.” “It lacks scientific theories.”

lists the categories that give arguments for why trainee teachers disliked certain teaching topics. The nine-section category system was developed on the basis of the trainee teachers’ statements and was illustrated in more detail in the table with content definitions and anchor examples.

There are four categories of arguments for disliking a teaching topic that expressed the opposite poles of the arguments designated for liking teaching topics, namely “Personal interest” vs. “Personal disinterest”, “Possibility of illustrative or active-oriented teaching” vs. “Lack of ideas for teaching”, “High ability self-concept” vs. “Low ability self-concept”, and “High relevance to everyday life” vs. “Lack of relevance for everyday life”.

A total of 788 category assignments were made for the arguments used by trainee teachers to justify their three least favorite teaching topics. The most common reason for disliking a teaching topic was “Personal disinterest” (a), followed by “Lack of conceptual knowledge” (b) and “Lack of ideas for teaching” (c). Other reasons are listed here according to how frequently they were mentioned (for the exact frequency of mention, see Figure 6): “A lack of fit for age group” (d), “Low ability self-concept for teaching” (e), “Lack of relevance to everyday life” (f), “Part of extracurricular or general education” (g), “Afraid of delicate topic” (h), and “Lack of science-based facts” (i).

Figure 7 shows, for each teaching topic, which three categories of arguments for disliking a particular teaching topic were most prevalent. These extracted top three categories of dislike represent between 54 and 100 percent of the statements made by trainee teachers in each topic area. Accordingly, for some teaching topics, partially complete information was already available in these three categories, while for other teaching topics, the reasons for unpopularity are more complex than was covered by the three categories. Including the three categories presented for each topic, the reasons for unpopularity for all the topics are, on average, 78 percent.

From the colors of the bars, it becomes clear that the two most frequently represented categories are also among the top three arguments for disliking almost all topics. The argument “Personal disinterest” (a) appears for 10 out of 12 topics in the top three, but the teaching topics “Being with others” and “Thinking about oneself” do not. Likewise, the argument “Lack of conceptual knowledge” (b) is in ten of the twelve topics in the top three, but not among the teaching topics “My hometown” and “Thinking about oneself”. The argument “Lack of ideas for teaching” (c) is one of the three dominant reasons for disliking five out of twelve teaching topics, namely: “Technology, electricity, and innovations”, “Sun, moon, stars, and universe”, “My hometown”, “How products were produced”, and “Thinking about oneself”. The category “Lack of fit for age group” (d) is among the top three arguments for disliking the teaching topics “Substances and their properties” and “Thinking about oneself”, while the category “Low ability self-concept (to teach)” (e) is the reason for disliking “Water, air, weather, and stones”, “Animals, woods, fields, and flowers”, and “Being with others”. Only one teaching topic, the category “Lack of relevance for everyday life” (f), was dominant among the top three arguments for disliking teaching topics. The category “Part of extracurricular or general education” (g) was often the main reason for disliking the teaching topics “My hometown” and “Being with others”. As a crucial category in the top three, the argument “Afraid of delicate topic” (h) appeared for disliking the teaching topics “Religions and traditions” and “Thinking about oneself”. For the sake of completeness, it must be stated that the category “Not enough science-based facts” (i) did not make it into the top three for disliking any topic. This argument was found, for example, in justifying the unpopularity of the teaching topics “Thinking about oneself” and “Religions and traditions”.

Among the list of unpopular teaching topics, starting with the most unpopular one, the following were highlighted as the crucial reason for each teaching topic, illustrated by a concrete example:

▪

The least popular topic was “Substances and their properties” and the justification for disliking it was most often attributed to a “Lack of conceptual knowledge” (category b), i.e., “Chemistry has never been my strong point. I have the feeling that I would then explain a lot of things incorrectly.”

▪

The second least popular topic, “Technology, electricity and inventions”, was also justified as disliked most often because of a “Lack of conceptual knowledge” (category b), i.e., “I don’t know very much about it; it’s not my field of expertise. Even when I was in school, I didn’t understand electricity or physics.”

▪

The most frequent reason for not liking the third least popular topic, “My hometown”, was “Personal disinterest” (category a), i.e., “Personally, I have little interest in it. There are more exciting topics for me. Switzerland is about the same everywhere. Foreign environments arouse my interest more. That’s why I don’t want to teach it, because anything you don’t enjoy is harder to get across as a teacher.”

▪

The fourth-ranked teaching topic, “Thinking about oneself”, was most often not liked because of a “Lack of ideas for teaching” (category c), i.e., “I can’t imagine exactly how one would teach this. Does this even work as a Nature-Human-Society teaching topic?”

▪

The fifth-ranked teaching topic, “Religions and traditions”, was frequently not liked as a subject matter due to the category “Afraid of delicate topic” (category h), i.e., “I think this is a very delicate issue and I imagine that it would be a great challenge to respond fairly to all students and their faith. From my own experience, I know that this topic requires a lot of sensitivity (can degenerate into ’my religion is better than yours’).”

▪

The sixth-ranked teaching topic, “How products were produced”, was most often not liked by trainee teachers due to “Personal disinterest” (category a), i.e., “I don’t find it that interesting. In the lessons, I would not go into too much detail about the production steps of goods, because that would be too dry for me.”

▪

In addition, the seventh-ranked teaching topic, “Water, air, weather, and stones”, was most often disliked due to a “Personal disinterest” (category a), i.e., “I’m less enthusiastic about this topic myself, which the children would then probably notice. Personally, stones and crystals hardly interest me.”

▪

The eighth-ranked teaching topic in the unpopularity list was “Life in earlier generations” and was justified most often due to a “Lack of relevance to everyday life” (category f), i.e., “It is the past. We live in the here and now and I think the future is generally more important. Therefore, in my opinion, the past is not so relevant to teach, for example, the Middle Ages a whole school year.”

▪

In the ninth-ranked teaching topic, “Sun, moon, stars, and universe”, the arguments “Personal disinterest” (category a), “Lack of conceptual knowledge (category b), and “Lack of ideas for teaching” (category c) were equally cited as the most common reason to dislike teaching this topic, i.e., “Because of lack of interest and knowledge on my part. I would not know how to explain it best, since the content is difficult to illustrate.”

▪

The tenth-ranked teaching topic, “Animals, woods, fields, ponds and flowers”, was most often disliked due to a “Personal disinterest” (category a), i.e., “I am not really an animal lover. I have little interest in them, and I am even afraid of some animals.”

▪

The disliking of the eleventh-ranked teaching topic, “Being with others”, was justified most often with a “Low ability self-concept for teaching” (category e), i.e., “I find this topic difficult to teach. I do not know if I could teach it.”

▪

The least unpopular topic, “Earth, and how people live in other places”, was consequently last ranked on the unpopularly list and there were only two arguments for disliking expressed, namely “Personal disinterest” (category a), i.e., “I am not interested in this.” and “Lack of conceptual knowledge” (category b), i.e., “I have too little knowledge about life in other countries, no experiences, no real knowledge (I have never been there).”

For the list of reasons for disliked teaching topics, it must also be mentioned that the number of justifications per teaching topic naturally varies, since certain topics are disliked by decidedly many trainee teachers and others by rather few (see Figure 3) and therefore subject to more or less frequent argumentation by trainee teachers (see Figure 7). When trainee teachers expressed a dislike of a particular teaching topic, the average number of reasons given for this dislike was 1.17 categories of those described above.

Overall, it was noted that not every justification was used for every teaching topic. There were teaching topics where the same few reasons were always given, and others where the reasons were more varied. In total, two argumentation categories for the topic were found in “Earth, and how people live in other places” (expressed categories: a and b), three categories for the topic “Animals, woods, fields, and flowers” (expressed categories: a, b, and d), six categories for the topic “How products were produced” (expressed categories: a–e and g), seven categories for the topic “Sun, moons, stars, and universe” (expressed categories: a–e, g, and i), eight categories for the topics “Being with others” (expressed categories: all except category d), “Life in earlier generations” (expressed categories: all except category i), “My hometown” (expressed categories: all except category i), and all nine categories for the topic “Thinking about oneself” (expressed categories: all).

4. Discussion

Guided by the open question of what arguments trainee teachers give for liking or disliking certain teaching topics in the Nature–Human–Society subject, this research was conducted with a study cohort of first-year students. The sample of this study can be considered representative of the typical student cohorts of this university of teacher education [32], as the typical gender ratio is represented quite well, and the sample’s Nature–Human–Society preferences and characteristics were similar to the results of other studies in terms of prior experience, affection, and perceived capability [22,23,24,25,26]. It became clear once again that there are two subject areas in Nature–Human–Society that the trainee teachers, compared to other topics, have not had such good experiences with, do not find emotionally appealing, and do not feel confident enough to teach. These areas are economics and physics–technology. Conversely, biological and social–ethical topics seem to have a positive status among the trainee teachers, both in terms of experience, affection, and perceived capability. The geographical teaching topic “Earth and how people live in other places” seems to combine trainee teachers’ biological and social–ethical orientation best, as it was clearly the most popular topic to teach, followed by the biological teaching topic “Animals, woods, ponds, and flowers”. At the bottom of the popularity scale for teaching topics were object-related topics, i.e., topics from the field of inanimate nature and technology, which is not surprising as trainee teachers’ interest structure is known to be more person-orientated [26]. These results reflected the findings of other quantitative studies quite well [22,23,24,25,26].

However, the perspective of the children was not sufficiently reflected in this view of the trainee teachers. While the trainee teachers’ positive attitudes towards topics of animate nature are in line with the interests of the children, the negative attitude of the trainee teachers towards topics of inanimate nature clashed with the interest preferences of the children, who expressed a strong interest in this area. This suggests a mismatch between pupils and teachers and can ultimately mean that the topics that are of most interest to children (see Figure 1) [12] are not given sufficient time and importance in lessons because of their teachers’ negative attitudes towards the abovementioned topics. Thus, the learning processes and outcomes of pupils can be compromised if teachers systematically neglect certain topics because of their personal outlook, even if the curriculum provides for a wide range of content [4,38,39,40]. Therefore, it was also important to explore the backgrounds that shape the attitudes of pre-service teachers.

The research question “How do trainee teachers justify their likes and dislikes for Nature–Human–Society teaching topics?” was answered in a differentiated way for twelve different teaching topics in this study. Even if there were teaching topics that were generally more (or less) popular among the trainee teachers, there was at least a small group of trainee teachers for each of those twelve teaching topics who ranked these Nature–Human–Society topics among their top three favorite (or least favorite) topics to teach. Thus, according to this survey, there are reasons to like or dislike a teaching topic for all twelve topics of Nature–Human–Society. However, it must also be noted, as a limitation of this study, that the empirical evidence of the argumentation was not equally high for all teaching topics, as there were topics that were only liked or disliked by a few and therefore not based on a large number of trainee teachers. Research desiderata would therefore include further qualitative surveys specifically on those teaching topics of Nature–Human–Society that are named as popular or unpopular by particularly few trainee teachers in order to increase the informative value of these data.

The most common reasons given for wanting to teach a topic were because it is highly relevant to everyday life and because it can be taught with illustrative materials or out of personal interest. Personal disinterest, a lack of conceptual knowledge, or a lack of teaching ideas, on the other hand, were the most common reasons for not liking certain teaching topics. It is notable that the statements about which issues of these topics they felt competent were underrepresented in the arguments for liking teaching topics. At the same time, the conviction that they do not have enough knowledge about these content areas seemed to have played a decisive role in the arguments for disliking a teaching topic. This finding is important because it highlights the need to work on trainee teachers’ subject knowledge during their teacher training and also on didactic knowledge to implement this content in an appropriate way for children. Conversely, the findings of this study have made it clear that a positive attitude towards certain teaching topics is not necessarily related to the trainee teachers’ perceptions of their competence in those subject areas. In other words, just because a teacher has a positive attitude towards a subject area does not mean that they feel confident to teach that subject area. This also suggests that it is generally important to create a teacher trainee environment where students feel supported and encouraged to develop their teaching skills, since trainee teachers’ attitudes are not the only factor that determines pupils’ learning [4,18,30,38,39,41]. However, it is known from the literature that the areas of personal interest are often associated with increased knowledge in this area, as people are more concerned with issues that interest them [42]. Therefore, the argument of an interesting topic can also be seen indirectly as an indicator that trainee teachers have more knowledge or experience in this content area. A previous study [23], which objectively recorded the general knowledge in specific areas, showed nevertheless that many trainee teachers who showed an interest in a particular Nature–Human–Society topic had no increased declarative knowledge of it. An effective difference in content knowledge was evident only in the comparison group of trainee teachers who favored or did not favor physics. Overall, according to the present study, the value-appreciative appraisal of the teaching topic, the teaching opportunities, and the personal interest approach seem to characterize teaching preferences.

After the analysis of all the inductively obtained arguments for liking and disliking certain teaching topics, an attempt was made to relate them theoretically. The three dimensions of attitude (Cognitive Beliefs, Affective States, and Perceived Control) according to the theoretical framework of Van Aalderen-Smeets and colleagues [30] seemed to be quite suitable for classifying all identified arguments (see

Table 4. Assignment of the inductively formed categories to the three attitude dimensions of the theoretical framework of [30]. Note: the attitude dimension Affective State was adapted with the term Affective Access.

Dimension	Arguments for Liking	Arguments for Disliking
Cognitive Beliefs	▪ High relevance to everyday life ▪ Promotion of prosocial behavior ▪ Significant shift in perspective ▪ Important to build up background knowledge ▪ To build up awareness and appreciation ▪ Important for personality development ▪ Value of sustainability and environmental protection ▪ Children’s interests and experiences given	▪ Lack of relevance for everyday life ▪ Part of extracurricular or general education ▪ Lack of science-based facts ▪ Lack of fit for age group
Affective Access	▪ Personal interest ▪ Fascination for the unknown	▪ Personal disinterest ▪ Afraid of delicate topic
Perceived Control	▪ Possibility of illustrative or action-oriented teaching ▪ High ability-self concept	▪ Lack of ideas for teaching ▪ Lack of conceptual knowledge ▪ Low ability self-concept for teaching

). Only the dimension of Affective States had to be expanded with the Affective Access concept because the category of interest/disinterest found was broader as a concept than as a pure emotion. However, let us examine the individual dimensions one by one.

The first dimension we explored was Cognitive Beliefs. According to Van Aalderen-Smeets and colleagues’ [30] theoretical framework, the cognitive dimension of attitude encompasses the evaluative thoughts and beliefs that a person has about the object of the attitude. This includes, for example, the perceived relevance or importance of the topic for society and daily life, as was also often found in the trainee teachers’ arguments in this study. Trainee teachers mentioned that pupils can gain various benefits from dealing with these teaching topics, such as sensitive behavior towards the environment and other people. Thus, it became clear in this study that trainee teachers believe that the environment and the interplay of the self with others are fundamental. Obviously, the prospective teachers of the Nature–Human–Society subject see their task as teaching children values that ensure the preservation of the environment and social coexistence, thus the livelihood and well-being of people. It was remarkable that only the teaching topic “Sun, moon, stars, and universe” had no main argument for liking which was justified by being useful in people’s lives. The trainee teachers probably do not see any direct benefits in having knowledge about celestial bodies as opposed to earlier times in history when celestial bodies were used, for example, for orientation or as an early form of the calendar. Generally, it can be stated from the literature that newer technologies have changed the significance of knowledge about the celestial bodies for humans’ daily life, although there is clearly an awareness in society that without the sun, for example, there would be no life on earth and that the sun is also important as a renewable energy source [43]. Another trainee teacher’s argument that can be counted among the cognitive beliefs of relevance attribution is that children’s interests and experiences are assumed for a particular subject area. It is therefore important to the trainee teachers that the topic is of interest to the children, that it has something to do with their immediate environment, and that children have already encountered it. A lack of topic relevance would thus be equated with a lack of child interest and motivation. If the topic is not relevant enough for children, then it does not arouse the interest and motivation necessary for learning, or if the topic has no connection to their lifeworld, then they cannot establish a personal context. Furthermore, there is the assumption that certain subject areas are not the responsibility of schools. In addition, some trainee teachers do not see much relevance in teaching some assigned tasks of the Nature–Human–Society subject because they believe that children can gain this knowledge and skill elsewhere. At the same time, the belief of “Part of extracurricular or general education” highlights the potential lack of understanding or imagination regarding what this topic entails or could signify within the classroom setting. Here, teacher training can play a crucial role in providing guidance and shedding light on the intricacies of these subject areas.

According to Van Aalderen-Smeets and colleagues’ [30] theoretical framework, another attribute of Cognitive Beliefs is the perceived general (and not subjective) difficulty of teaching that topic. It refers to a difficulty that is inherent in the task or situation itself and is not dependent on the individual’s perception or experience. This form of cognitive belief could be identified once in the argument of assuming a general lack of established knowledge in this area. The belief that it is difficult to teach something about which there are not enough facts was not mentioned frequently in this study, but it showed that trainee teachers recognize either a difference in the quality of data, evidence, and regularities across some sciences (i.e., religion studies vs. physics) or that they are simply not yet familiar enough with the theoretical concepts behind certain topics (i.e., thinking about oneself) in order to recognize them. Furthermore, the argument that the topic is not appropriate for an age group can also be seen as a cognitive belief of general difficulty. The expressed beliefs of a lack of fit for the age group are understood primarily in the sense that the children do not have the cognitive maturity to understand the complex topics of the content, which can lead to difficulties in learning during lessons. In both cases of these beliefs of perceived difficulty, it is important that the teacher training shows its students what these teaching topics mean in kindergarten and primary school and how they can be dealt with in the classroom so that learning can take place. For example, getting to know the curriculum and the differentiated competence expectations it contains for the different age groups will certainly help them to better grasp the subject matter [1,10,11].

A further possible attribution of Cognitive Beliefs according to this theoretical framework [30], namely convictions about gender-specific differences in people’s abilities, was not found in this study, but this result can be evaluated as positive. This means that there were no gender-stereotypical ideas among the trainee teachers that would have an influence on their teaching preferences. This result contradicts the findings of other studies that have found gender-specific beliefs in teachers, such as the belief that science topics are more suitable for boys than for girls [30].

The second dimension of the theoretical category assignment we investigated was Affective Access. In the original theory framework [30], Affective States was mentioned as another attitude dimension. The term Affective States is considered to refer to the feelings and moods that a person experiences in relation to the object of the attitude, strictly speaking, in teaching certain content. Since the participants surveyed were first-year students and not working teachers or those with professional experience, the concept had to be adapted somewhat in the theoretical classification of trainee teachers’ arguments. The term Affective Access seemed to be appropriate and accurate for the theoretical classification of certain inductively formed categories in this study that implicated emotional valences. Both positive and negative emotions, such as curiosity or fear, can be read from the trainee teachers’ arguments. In this context, we can recall that emotions always influence the readiness to act. In the case of positive emotions, they lead towards an object, and in the case of negative emotions, they lead to distancing from the object [44]. With the category of interest (and disinterest), however, we found a concept that is broader than just a feeling or an emotion as it involves cognitive aspects as well. Therefore, personal interests and disinterests describe more fully the (missing) affective access for teaching a certain topic in teachers as individuals, not the emotions arising during teaching as was defined with affective states. Nevertheless, the term interest generally implicates feelings of stimulation and joy; it is the feeling of engagement. Thus, in the case of teaching certain topics, an interest-orientated action is always associated with positive emotional valences. It also contains a sense of self-determination, i.e., teachers feel free from external constraints because they have the feeling that they can do what they want to do. The cognitive representations of the object of interest, including the knowledge of possible courses of action in this subject area, are emotionally positive. It is important to note that the emotional tone relates not only to the past but also to future confrontations with objects, i.e., people expect an interest-oriented activity to evoke pleasant experiential qualities [45]. This implies that the (development of) interest in particular teaching content or methods can foster a deeper level of engagement in the teaching practice of future teachers. Osborne and colleagues [46] mentioned, for example, that a crucial characteristic of a good science teacher is being interested and enthusiastic about science.

The third dimension of the theoretical category assignment we inspected was Perceived Control. According to the theoretical framework [30], perceived control derives from beliefs of self-efficacy [47] and perceived dependence on contextual factors, leading to the teacher’s impression of being able to control the teaching situation. This concept reflects the subjective beliefs and feelings of the individual about internal and external obstacles. In this study, this dimension could be identified in statements of personal inability and ability, as well as of subjective convictions that lessons can or cannot be conducted due to external reasons such as (missing) possibilities for illustration and action-oriented lesson organization. These trainee teachers’ arguments expressed a basic need for motivational behavior control, namely the need to experience competence, as Deci and Ryan [16] defined it, i.e., to experience oneself as capable of acting and coping with foreseeable challenges. As trainee teachers’ assessments relate to future actions, they imply confidence in one’s own ability to learn and develop in order to be able to cope with such teaching situations later on [45]. In this context, the students seemed to assess their prerequisites differently in the various teaching topics. In some subject areas, they do not trust themselves due to a lack of knowledge in the subject area [48] or a lack of child-appropriate teaching ideas. There seems to be a perception that if illustrative and action-oriented teaching ideas are known, teaching can be mastered, as it is probably assumed that children can then be brought up to their performance level and motivated in their learning and that the lessons will then run smoothly. However, pedagogical content knowledge contains more than just an understanding of appropriate learning tasks for certain teaching topics and effective methods for implementing them. For example, it also includes knowledge about typical ideas of children regarding teaching topics and explanatory knowledge, which is distinct from another area of professional knowledge, namely content knowledge, which is defined as a deep understanding of the subject content [41]. Teacher education needs to foster students’ growth in all these areas, nurturing their aspiration to teach.

The pie charts in Figure 8 show how large the proportion of these three attitude dimensions is when trainee teachers name reasons for liking or disliking a teaching topic in the Nature–Human–Society subject.

It is noticeable that the reasons given for the popularity of a topic were predominantly cognitive beliefs (64.8%), followed by a clearly smaller proportion of perceived-control arguments (18.5%), and finally an even smaller proportion of affective-access arguments (16.7%). In contrast, perceived-control arguments (44.5%) dominate the arguments for the unpopularity of teaching topics, followed by a considerable proportion of affective-access arguments (33.5%), while cognitive-beliefs arguments (22.0%) account for only a small proportion.

It is interesting to note that the missing perceived control to teach was dominant in the unpopular topics, although the same argument in a positive sense (perceived control), was not as prominent in the popular ones. Rather, individual convictions about the importance of the subject matter seem to play a role here, which leads teachers to enjoy teaching these subjects. This also reflects the trainee teachers’ focus on the child, as it is important to them to have a positive influence on children’s development. However, it must also be noted that their understanding of the topics being taught is still limited or naive, as it is often assumed that teaching these topics would automatically lead to children developing a positive, social, environmentally friendly, and sustainable attitude towards them [27].

Finally, the research question “Are there arguments for liking and, respectively, disliking teaching topics that are more pronounced in some teaching topics of Nature–Human–Society than others?” can be answered in the affirmative, although a similar pattern of argumentation could also be found for some teaching topics. Therefore, it is necessary to look at the content of the teaching topics to see which arguments should be weakened or strengthened so that the disliked teaching topics are more acceptable among all trainee teachers.

It should be noted that these assessments always refer to subjective cognitive representations of teaching topics. As these are first-year students, these perceptions were often based on experiences from their own school days or prejudices; after all, their views must first be developed through the practical implementation of teaching such topics. In this respect, these attitudes towards teaching topics cannot yet be regarded as firmly established but as transformable [49], which results in hope and makes the value of teacher training all the more clear. Further studies in the future could examine the attitudes of student teachers at the end of their studies or in their professional lives, whether their likes and dislikes of NMG teaching topics and their responses to the questionnaire are still the same, or whether they have changed.

5. Conclusions

The aim of this study was to show which arguments need to be addressed during the course of study in order to inspire trainee teachers to teach all topics of this multidisciplinary subject. In contrast to other studies and for the first time, the reasons for the popularity and unpopularity of teaching topics were acquired inductively from trainee teachers’ points of view. This study provides complementary evidence to support and complete previous conclusions based on quantitative data [22,23,24,25,26]. Therefore, the findings of this study make a significant contribution to higher education and can ultimately have an influence on subsequent teaching practices in the Nature–Human–Society subject.

Since it is well known that those topics in subjects that teachers do not like or do not feel confident in teaching are underrepresented in teaching practices [4,38,39,40], it is all the more important that teacher trainees at universities are aware of the reasons for these likes and dislikes. In teacher training, they can give trainee teachers a clearer idea of these particular teaching topics in kindergarten and primary school, demonstrating to them that all topics are relevant for living in the world and suitable for illustrative teaching with children. Lastly, this knowledge can give teachers the necessary tools they need to have control over teaching these topics. In this context, it is important to remember what Van-Aalderen and colleagues [6] stated about an evaluation of various teacher training programs aimed at improving teachers’ negative attitudes towards science: an approach with “hands-on science activities, inquiry-based teaching methods, cooperative learning (…) seems more effective in changing attitude towards science than a content knowledge approach” (p. 711). Therefore, it seems crucial that the course resonates emotionally with the (trainee) teachers and stimulates their interest in the particular situation. As Bulunuz [5] observed, “Experiencing fun, playful, interesting activities in a positive and supportive social environment were important variables for developing preservice science teacher’s attitudes toward teaching science” (p. 80). Thus, if we are successful in creating positive and empowering experiences during teacher training, especially in fields that have been previously rejected, we can strengthen their enthusiasm and engagement for teaching those topics in later classroom practice [4,5,26].

In conclusion, the best way to change attitudes is to consider the dimension of their origin. This means that affective-based attitudes are best changed by addressing emotional components, cognitive-based attitudes through strong arguments, and perceived capability through mastering experiences [50,51]. This study has shown where changes have to be made for each topic of the Nature–Human–Society subject. The task in the future is to apply these findings and to form a positive professional attitude among the prospective teachers.