Teachers' Beliefs and Self-Reported Use of Inquiry in Science Education in Public Primary Schools

Abstract

This paper describes Ecuadorian in-service teachers and their science teaching practices in public primary schools. We wanted to find out to what extent teachers implement inquiry activities in science teaching, the level of support they provide, and what type of inquiry they implement. Four questionnaires applied to 173 teachers resulted in the identification of high context beliefs and moderately high self-efficacy beliefs. Teachers declared to implement activities mostly to develop understanding of the material, as contrast to actual manipulation of data and/or coming to conclusions. They adopt rather a strictly guided approach in contrast to giving autonomy to learners to work on their own. Finally, teachers keep control with regard to question formulation and choice in solution procedures, which constrains the development of real inquiry. When comparing teacher beliefs, we found that teachers' context beliefs make a difference in the level of support that teachers provide to their students. Teachers with lower context beliefs ask students to perform inquiry activities on their own to a lesser extent when compared with teachers with higher context beliefs. This implies that further research on the implementation of inquiry in science teaching should take into account teachers' differences in their context beliefs. We also found out that the use of high or low support in inquiry activities remained the same for teachers with either higher or lower self-efficacy beliefs.

Keywords:

• Teacher beliefs
• Inquiry-based teaching
• Elementary education
• Developing world

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the grant BOF08/DOC/023 from Ghent University. The authors acknowledge the kind collaboration of Professor Enrique Peláez and Professor Katherine Chiluiza from ESPOL University in Ecuador, who facilitated the data collection for this study. We also thank Professor Bram de Wever, who gave important suggestions for the data analysis.

Notes

Basic education in Ecuador comprises 10 years that in the US educational system correspond to kindergarten, primary education, and three years of secondary education. By the end of basic education, a student might be 14–15-years-old.

Second and seventh years correspond to first and sixth grades in the US educational system.

Both teachers from Arenillas and Huaquillas protested against and did not attend mandatory workshops on Saturdays.

Consulta, in the Ecuadorian context, means homework that can be done from one day to another because the information required is easy to get. It is simpler and shorter than a research project.