Although all teachers hold beliefs about alternative curriculum designs, researchers know little about how the beliefs are related to each other and to teacher demographic characteristics such as gender and subject areas. In addition, measuring instruments in this area of curriculum enquiry remain primitive. In this article, we review issues surrounding the measurement of teachers' curriculum orientations, report the development and validation of a 30-item curriculum orientation inventory, and use the data gathered from a sample of 648 Hong Kong teachers to examine the relationships between curriculum orientations and some teacher demographic characteristics. The inventory was designed to measure teachers' ve curriculum orientations: academic, cognitive process, social reconstruction, humanistic and technological. We found that the reliability and validity of the data were adequate. In contrast to logical expectation, teachers valued all the ve theoretically con icting curriculum orientations and the correlations among the orientations were considerable and positive. There was no signi cant difference in teachers' curriculum orientations based on gender. Primary and secondary school teachers also did not show signi cant difference. Furthermore, experienced teachers were more likely to value the academic orientation and English language teachers were more humanistic than science teachers. Directions for future research are suggested.

Chemistry education researchers have noted the inadequacy of Le Châtelier's principle (LCP) for decades (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12). They have shown how apparently reasonable applications of LCP can result in incorrect predictions about the effects of changes in concentration, volume, pressure, or temperature on chemical systems at equilibrium. Because LCP has no value for chemistry teachers and students other than historical interest, some researchers (13-19) have criticized the over-emphasis of LCP in the school chemistry curriculum. They have recommended the use of the equilibrium law, reaction quotient, and van't Hoff equation to predict the direction in which a chemical equilibrium system will shift when it is disturbed. Yet little progress has been made to delete LCP from the school chemistry curriculum. Textbooks of high school chemistry or college chemistry published in many countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and China still rely on LCP as the major predictive tool. Le Châtelier himself described three different statements of LCP (18). Petrucci, Harwood, and Herring (20) emphasized that it is hard to state LCP unambiguously, but they believed that the essential meaning of LCP is as follows: When an equilibrium system is subjected to a change in temperature, pressure, or concentration of a reacting species, the system responds by attaining a new equilibrium that partially offsets the impact of change (20, p 641; emphasis in original).

One of the characteristics of teaching chemistry through inquiry is that teachers need to encourage students to design their experimental procedures. Although the benefits of inquiry teaching are well documented in the literature, few teachers implement it in schools. The purpose of this study was to develop a guided-inquiry scale (GIS) to measure teachers’ beliefs about implementing guided-inquiry labs in secondary schools. Construction of this guided-inquiry scale was based on a model with three dimensions: the value of guided-inquiry labs, limitations of cookbook-style labs, and implementation issues with guided-inquiry labs. Data were collected from 200 Hong Kong chemistry teachers. They responded to the GIS items using a seven-point Likert scale. The GIS data were of adequate reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a good fit exists between the hypothesized model and data. Both users and nonusers of guided-inquiry labs valued this kind of lab work and recognized the limitations of cookbook-style labs; however, nonusers tended to believe that students dislike guided inquiry and it is not feasible for students to design experiments. The length of chemistry teaching experience and the level of student ability did not influence teachers’ beliefs about implementing guided-inquiry labs.

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School-based assessment of science students' practical skills has two important roles-as a complement to written papers in public examinations and as a catalyst for enriching the science curriculum in schools. This article describes a quantitative study of the concerns chemistry and biology teachers experience as they engage in the process of implementation of a school-based assessment scheme for practical work. A 23-item questionnaire was developed to measure five categories of teacher concern: evaluation, information, management, consequence and refocusing. The nature of each category of teacher concern is discussed in relation to innovation adoption and implementation. Data were collected from 400 chemistry and 412 biology teachers in Hong Kong. Teachers' information and management concerns lessened in intensity when they became experienced users of a school-based assessment scheme. However, teaching experience alone could not motivate teachers to think more about the impact of school-based assessment on student learning, their professional development in student assessment and the possible refinements in their school-based assessment scheme. Concerns-based interventions are suggested to help teachers grow professionally.