Physics Laboratory Teaching at Middle School in Beijing: A Comparative Study of Urban and Rural Middle School Physics Teachers' Perspectives

• In Event: AERA Graduate Student Research-in-Progress Roundtable Session 1
  In Roundtable Session: Research on Science Teaching, Teaching Efficacy, and Trust in Science (Table 10)

Abstract

This study aims to explore the disparity in the perception of physics teachers regarding the availability and necessity of laboratory resources and their impact on educational outcomes in urban and rural settings in Beijing. Preliminary results show that urban and rural teachers perceive a disparity in the availability of laboratory resources with respect to school districts. Limited resources and differentiated teaching philosophy lead to the outcome that urban teachers report a stronger necessity of conducting labs than rural teachers. Additionally, though both urban and rural teachers believe there's a positive correlation between conducting labs and student performance, urban teachers focus more on students' long-term development while rural teachers focus more on physics test scores.

Author

• Jiaao Liu, University of California - Los Angeles