‘What We Think We Can Safely Say…’: Primary teachers’ views of the nature of science

Abstract

Since science became part of the core curriculum in England and Wales for children aged ve upwards, primary school teachers have moved from widespread dif dence to positions of some con dence and success in teaching it. In the process, their views of the nature of science and the purposes of teaching it can be expected to have developed. The importance of the teacher in relation to the quality of students' learning, and to the ideas about and orientations towards a subject that students develop, is well documented. There are good reasons to believe that teachers' views of the nature of science form part of a 'hidden curriculum' in their science teaching: thus, an understanding of them is necessary to an understanding of learners' experiences of science teaching. The research reported explored such views through both case study and survey methodologies. The case studies showed the depth and subtlety of some teachers' views of science. The survey data yielded six factors, explaining 82% of the variance in respondents' views of science, provisionally named scientism, naive empiricism, 'newage-ism', constructivism, pragmatism and scepticism. The views of science expressed by teachers in interview, and those inferred from and made explicit in their practice, were in most cases consistent with their positions on these factors. These enable interesting insights into the representations of science communicated by primary teachers in their science teaching, which could inform curriculum development in relation to the nature of science, at both primary and secondary levels.

Engaging Science: Pre-Service Primary School Teachers’ Notions of Engaging Science Lessons

“…Accessing such notions through a specific context in this way can relate more closely to teaching behaviours than asking for generalisations (e.g. Strauss, 1993;Lunn, 2002;Beswick, 2004). Eliciting general notions can be less informative as they do not indicate how they might be interpreted or if the trainee can make them specific for classroom application.…”

Nature of Science in the Science Curriculum: Origin, Development, Implications and Shifting Emphases

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Teacher Perceptions of Science in the National Curriculum: Findings from an application of the Science Curriculum Implementation Questionnaire in English primary schools

“…Parker andHeywood 1998, 2000;Shallcross and Spink 2002;Parker 2004;). Similarly, work continues to positively influence primary teachers' personal beliefs and attitudes towards science, and about the nature of science, which also affect the many ways in which science is regarded and presented (Parker and Spink 1997;Abd-El-Khalick and Lederman 2000;Lunn 2002;Pell and Jarvis 2003;Waters-Adams 2006). Integrating science within the professional identities of primary teachers has proved no easy task.…”