Abstract
The purpose of this study was to use textbook analysis as a professional development tool to support high school sciences teachers’ understanding and Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) development in the teaching of Nature of Science (NOS).
The importance of NOS, the naïve understanding of NOS concepts by in-service teachers and the lack of guidance in curriculum documents on how to infuse NOS in the science classroom necessitated the need to develop a Teacher Professional Development Programme to improve NOS understanding and the PCK for NOS. At the time of writing this thesis, there was limited literature on professional development programmes in South Africa to improve NOS understanding of in-service teachers. Against this background the researcher posed the main research question: How does textbook analysis enhance NOS understanding of in-service science teachers and support their PCK development in the teaching of NOS?
The research design for this study was qualitative and followed a pragmatist paradigm. Convenience and purposeful sampling were employed to select 11 participant teachers, five teaching Life Sciences and six teaching Physical Sciences to participate in the study. A three-phased approach to conduct the study was formulated by the researcher of a pre-intervention phase, the intervention phase and a post-intervention phase. In the pre-intervention phase, the researcher conducted a baseline on NOS understanding of the teachers and existing PCK for NOS (hereinafter referred to as PCKNOS). Data to establish NOS understanding was collected through a questionnaire and to document PCKNOS of the teachers, lesson observations were carried out and data entered on a lesson observation schedule. Content analysis of the collected data was conducted in which codes were allocated to the qualitative data in a technique similar to Saldana’s coding technique. Scores were allocated to the codes categorising NOS understanding on a scale of -3 to +3. The higher the score, the more informed understanding of NOS. PCKNOS was categorised as naïve, developing or sophisticated based on a Likert-scale from 1 to 5.
The findings of the pre-intervention phase were used to inform focus areas for the Teacher Professional Development Programme (TPDP) designed by the researcher
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and conducted online using google classroom platforms and WhatsApp groups. This was a convenient mode of delivery for both the researcher and the participant teachers since the TPDP was delivered during the lockdown period in South Africa of 2021. Post-intervention, the researcher administered the same instruments, PCKNOS tool and integrated family views of nature of science (IFVNOS) questionnaire, to gather data on NOS understanding and PCKNOS of the teachers. Identical techniques of data analysis and scoring were employed on the post-intervention data. Averages were drawn of the pre- and post-intervention data and comparisons were made to determine changes in NOS understanding and PCKNOS of the teachers.
Research findings showed that the 11 high school sciences teachers who participated in the pre-intervention phase presented a general naïve understanding of NOS. However, three of the 11 teachers held a slightly better understanding of NOS through implicit, informed and consistent views. Analysis of teacher lessons revealed that only two teachers possessed a developing PCKNOS while the remaining nine teachers had a naïve PCKNOS. The intervention phase of the TPDP in textbook analysis on NOS to enhance NOS understanding comprised an explicit-reflective approach to teaching NOS consisting of a support structure that allowed for collaboration and sharing of ideas among teachers. The findings of the third phase of the research, the post-intervention phase, showed an overall improvement in NOS understanding in seven of the eight teachers who completed the study. One teacher maintained an implicit, informed and consistent understanding of NOS as had been observed in the pre-test phase but had a decrease in the overall score of NOS understanding from +16 to +13. All eight participant teachers who completed the study displayed a shift in PCKNOS to a developing category. One teacher who initially was in the developing category pre-intervention remained in the category but obtained a higher score overall post-intervention.
From a practical perspective the findings of this study provide research-based recommendations for providers of in-service science teachers professional development programmes such as the Department of Basic Education, recommendations for textbook authors and recommendations for future research.