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Abstract
Capitalizing on the comments made by teachers on videos of exemplary science teaching, a video-based survey instrument on the topic of ‘Density’ was developed and used to investigate the conceptions of good science teaching held by 110 teachers and 4,024 year 7 students in Hong Kong. Six dimensions of good science teaching are identified from the 55-item questionnaire, namely, ‘focussing on science learning’, ‘facilitating students’ understanding’, ‘encouraging students’ involvement’, ‘creating conducive environment’, ‘encouraging active experimentation’ and ‘preparing students for exam (PSE)’. Significant gaps between teachers’ and students’ conceptions on certain dimensions have been revealed. The inconsistency on the dimension ‘PSE’ is particularly evident and possible reasons for the phenomenon are suggested. This study raises the important questions of how the gap can be addressed, and who is to change in order to close the gaps. Answers to these questions have huge implications for teacher education and teacher professional development.
Acknowledgements
The work described in this paper was fully supported by a grant from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. HKU 7283/04H). The authors are grateful to the students and teachers who kindly agreed to take part in the study.
Notes
When the study was conducted, there were a total of 503 secondary schools in Hong Kong.
They were not co-authors of the paper. They were adjudicators for national awards of exemplary science teaching and had more than 20 years of teacher training experiences.
Interested readers may consult the first author for access of the video-based instrument.
In Hong Kong, when students are promoted to secondary schools they are allocated to three bands of schools according to their academic abilities. Band 1 schools admit students with highest abilities and Band 3 the lowest.