Abstract
To teach science successfully, teachers need to have not only good content knowledge but also knowledge of how to translate this into appropriate teaching approaches for specific topics and for a particular group of learners. The study investigated the pedagogical orientations of South African physical sciences pre-service teachers. A key dimension in science teaching is pedagogical orientation. The term ‘orientation’ refers to teachers’ knowledge and beliefs for teaching science. A quantitative survey approach was applied in this study. Pre-service teacher’s pedagogy preferences were measured using a questionnaire instrument comprising of items that portrayed actual teaching scenarios for particular physical sciences topics. Each item provided four alternative teaching method options, and students were required to select the option they considered to be most appropriate and the most inappropriate. Each option corresponded with a particular pedagogical orientation that was based on a framework developed by a team of researchers at Western Michigan University. The pre-service teachers were also required to justify each choice. Based on the pedagogical orientation choices made, the instrument yielded quantitative data that was analysed descriptively in order to establish the preferred pedagogical orientations of the pre-service teachers. The results of the analysis revealed that pre-service teachers exhibited a strong preference for learner-centred teaching approaches that aligned with guided inquiry and open discovery pedagogical orientations, while a much smaller group of students preferred the teacher-centred direct didactic and direct interactive orientations.