Abstract:
Research indicates that teachers’
beliefs about goals or purposes of science
teaching, as one dimension of science
teaching orientations, influence what happens
in the classroom. The purpose of this
research was to explore the self-reported
and enacted goals or purposes of science
teaching of four in-service Malawian
science teachers using the curriculum
emphases concept as a theoretical lens.
This research used qualitative case study
research design. Semi-structured interviews
and classroom observations were
used to explore teachers’ self-reported
and enacted goals or purpose of science
teaching, respectively. A deductive analysis
approach was used to analyze interview
and classroom observation transcripts, to
understand the teacher’s goals or purposes.
Results reveal that while teachers have
multiple self-reported goals or purpose
of science teaching, most of these are not enacted during teaching in the classrooms.
This suggests the topic-specific nature of
the goals or purposes. Results also show
that all the teachers were not aware of the
self-as-explainer goal or purpose of science
teaching both during interviews and
instruction. These findings are discussed,
and implications are proposed for science
in-service teacher professional development
and pre-service teachers’ training
programs.
