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ABSTRACT
As a myriad of student-centred practices in primary science education have been established as valuable, effective cornerstones of teachers’ repertoires, there is now space to further consider student choice in science education. This paper seeks to examine the role of student choice in primary science education by exploring the relationship between primary teachers’ attitudes towards student-choice (minimal, emergent, and planned) and their science teaching efficacy beliefs and reported science teaching practices. A sample of 206 Australian primary teachers responded to a digital quantitative survey comprised of items that included professional demographics, the Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument A (STEBI-A), science teaching approaches, and student-choice in science teaching. Descriptive statistics, T-tests, ANOVAs and Chi Squares were used in data analysis. The results showed that teachers who reportedly embraced student-choice were more efficacious and reported more expansive arrays of science teaching approaches than those who purported to minimise choice. Although there is a need for follow-up proximal research to elucidate these findings, some speculative interpretations and recommendations are discussed.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Data availability statement
The datasets generated and analysed during the current study are not publicly available due to negotiated ethics agreements based on the risk of participant identification but some aggregated, deidentified data can made available by the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Ethics statement
Ethics approval was granted via the Charles Sturt University Human Research Ethics Committee (H21071) and the NSW State Education Research Applications Process (SERAP 2021178).