Teachers' beliefs about science and science teaching: Narratives of convictions, actions and constraints
Abstract
In spite of considerable expenditure for research, educators have been ineffective in bringing about a change in the practice of teaching, perhaps because we have not considered the rationale teachers use in making instructional decisions. This study examines teachers' beliefs about science and science teaching and how these beliefs shape their instruction. Three teachers were asked to participate in the study based on their diversity of beliefs about science and on their varying years of experience. Two of them teach junior high science. One has two years of experience, the other has 25. The third teacher is a high school physics teacher with 15 years of experience. The teachers' beliefs were probed in interviews and their classrooms were observed for about 35 hours each. The junior high teacher with 25 years of experience had a strong logical positivist orientation to science. Science was taught as the truth, with theories being strictly right or wrong. His role was to transmit the truth to his students and implement lab activities with the emphasis on following procedures to discover the truth. His beliefs about science, science teaching, and his students created a consistent, self-reinforcing belief system to guide instructional decisions. The high school physics teacher viewed science as constructed facts and theories that serve to explain and predict observations. Theories were tools to solve problems rather than truth. Memorizing theories, but not being able to apply them to novel problems was not highly valued. Theories were not accepted solely on the authority of the teacher, but were examined in light of observations. Once again, the beliefs of the teacher were remarkably consistent and self-reinforcing. The junior high teacher in his second year held to beliefs about science that included aspects of both logical positivism and newer philosophies. However, he had considerable difficulty in implementing instruction consistent with his stated beliefs. Reasons for this include: (1) some of his beliefs contradict each other, (2) he is learning the science content as he is teaching it, and (3) there are institutional barriers to implementation of his desired instruction.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Neie, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Science education|Teacher education
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