An Empirical Research On Science Teachers' Belief About Inquiry

In the cross of centuries, basic education curriculum reform begins in China. The National Curriculum Standards for Science Education of our country clearly points out:"Inquiry is defined not only as a goal of science learning, but also a way of science learning. Taking lessones in inquiry is the fist channel in science learning."In other words, inquiry is not only an idea, but also the goal and contents of education. However, some studies indicate that the implication of inquiry teaching is not optimistic and teachers'belief is the mainly reason of it. At present, studies of inquiry teaching mainly focus on theories. In these reaserch, teachers' role is confirmed but there is no further reaserch on the factors of it that affect teaching especially beliefs of teachers. In this thesis, teachers'beliefs and implication of scientific inquiry is investigated in order to provide theoretical and practical reference for its further implementation.Based on the literature of China and abroad, and the theoretical framework, questionnaire of science teachers'belief about inquiry are constructed after the trial test of 101 subjects of Tengzhou and item selection. 170 science teachers from Guilin,Wuhan,Shenzhen finished this questionare. Besides, an interview is given to some teachers. The results indicate that:(1) Science teachers'belief about inquiry in this research includ four dimensions: view about student, view about teacher, view about knowledge and curriculum and view about inquiry teaching.(2) The internal concordance coefficient of the questionnaire, which was constructed according to the structure of science teachers'belief about inquiry is 0.727 and the content validity is good.(3) An average value of science teachers'belief about inquiry is 3.02, which shows that the tendency of science teachers'belief about inquiry is between progressive approach and traditional approach.(4) There are no remarkable differences of science teachers' belief about inquiry among genders and the subjects they teach. The older they teach,their belief about inquiry tend to improve, however, it is the highest at the age of 6 to 10 and then decrease; besides, as teachers' title becomes higher, their belief about inquiry tend to decrease, however, the total of intermediate title rise first and then drop .(5) The total of"view about student"is 2.68, which is lower than other dimensions, which are 3.03, 3.17, 3.26.(6) There is no remarkable difference in each dimension of science teachers' belief about inquiry among different genders and subjects they teach. Among teachers of different deciplines, Pysical teachers'score are the highest in the dimensions of view about student, view about teacher and view about inquiry teaching. However, science teachers'score are the highest in the dimensions of view about knowledge and curriculum; As teachers work longer, their views about student, view about teacher and view about inquiry teaching tend to decrease and it is the highest at the age of 6 to 10 then decrease. But there is no difference in view about knowledge and curriculum among different working age teachers. As teachers' title becomes higher, their views about student and inquiry teaching tend to decrease. However, there is no difference in the dimensiones of viewes about teacher and knowledge and curriculum among different professional title teachers.(7) The interviews show that teacher believe that students in the normal class are active and can think by themselves while students in the ordinary class are not so active but lazy. Teachers think that learning by inquiry is not so helpful to pass exams.There are two reasons: students'knowledge structure is not complete and systematic. Besides, is would waste a lot of time and students can not pay enough attention to the knowledge that emphasized in exams.Teachers believe that they are an important element in successful inquiry teaching and learning. And teachers'tend to use low level inquiry instruction because they are not sure about their students'ability to explore.They think that science is always changing, meanwhile, they hold that science is objective. Besides, we find that science teachers of 7-9 experimental districts are very positive at integrated Science crricullum and hold a relatively correct attitude towards the nature of science.Finally, teachers do not think learning by inquiry is a way to discover by themselves; compared with the traditional teaching method, teachers would pay more attention to the process of learning; they agree with inquiry teaching but not so confidence about it.Besides, they think that exam, students'ability and instrcution time are main factors that hinder inquiry instructions.