The influence of science teachers' epistemology and metacognition their use of inquiry-based teaching approach

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Wednesday IV)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Teachers' experiences, teaching approaches, and consequences on learning

Proposal

Science education has recently become the top priority of government of Pakistan. Number of schemes has been initiated for the improvement of science teaching and learning at primary and secondary levels of education. These initiatives include the establishment and refurbishment of science labs in the schools, designing new science text books, and training in-service science teachers and educators. The inquiry-based teaching approach is embedded in most of these training as it encourages creativity, critical thinking, empowers students, and promotes innovation. Therefore, this approach has been promoted in the recent continuous professional development trainings for the in-service teachers. However, the follow-ups on trained science teachers and educators suggest that these teachers fail to implement the inquiry-based teaching approaches in their classes. In addition, these trainings also fail to bring any significant change in students’ science content knowledge and understanding. For examples, the analysis of the scores of students of grade 5 and 8 in the science subjects shows no significant improvement. This situation alerts that there is something seriously wrong in our approach to train science teachers, who, according to the scores of SAT and ASER, fail to achieve the desirable students learning outcomes. It is well documented that science has been taught in Pakistan using scientific positivism, which supports objectivity based on experiments and mathematics. Research suggests that science teachers and educators limit themselves to one fix answer that is provided in the books and that there is only one “right” way to teach science. There is no room for students’ or teachers’ own opinion or bias when it comes to scientific concepts. Students’ creativity and critical thinking halt in this approach. Therefore, this approach has been criticized in the modern societies for its limitations where fixity of knowledge is promoted, and creativity is stalled. As most of our science teachers and educators have studies science content knowledge with this approach throughout their education careers; therefore it can be assumed that they may have developed positivist epistemology in the process of acquiring science context knowledge. In contrary, the inquiry-based teaching approach is based on constructivism, which conflicts with the positivist epistemology of science teachers and educators. It is, therefore, assumed that science teachers and educators struggle to implement the inquiry-based teaching approach as it conflicts with their basic epistemological beliefs. This research aims to empirically study science teachers and educators epistemological beliefs and its impact on their pedagogy, particularly the implementation of inquiry-based teaching approaches.

Author

• Irfan Ahmed (Rind), Sukkur IBA University