Science teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning related to content and procedural goals

Abstract

Science teachers' beliefs about teaching and learning are a vital component of teachers' professional competence and are often assumed to impact classroom practice. To date, these beliefs have been predominantly investigated regarding teaching and learning in general or for a particular science subject (e.g., physics). It remains to be determined whether these beliefs are similar across different goals within a subject. The study reported addresses this question by investigating and comparing beliefs about teaching and learning regarding two prominent main goals of science education: content goals that refer to scientific phenomena, laws, theories, and disciplinary core ideas and procedural goals that refer to scientific procedures and practices. To that end, data from 170 German teachers were collected in 2019 and 2020 with an online questionnaire. After modeling the data and assessing the quality of measurement via Rasch analysis techniques, subsequent t-tests were employed to compare beliefs. Results reveal that science teachers' beliefs vary between both main goals. For instance, teachers believe that achieving procedural goals requires primarily doing science with lesser relevance of discussing and elaborating with students explicitly the rules and strategies for engaging appropriately in scientific practices (e.g., control of variables strategy). In contrast, teachers believe that for achieving content goals, explicit instruction about corresponding conceptual knowledge is of higher relevance. Furthermore, the analysis reveals differences in teachers' beliefs about their own abilities. Teachers typically believe they are more able to teach and deal with content goals compared with procedural goals. The differences reported may help to understand research on teachers' classroom practice and can inform teacher training and professional development.