Abstract
Implementing the inquiry approach in the science classroom represents a challenge for pre-service secondary science teachers due to the perceptions they build around inquiry and determine their future teaching practice. In this work, we analyse the perceptions of 46 students of the science specialities of the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education Teaching, using the design of a questionnaire adapted from the PRIMAS project. The results obtained show some initial perceptions of the participants with a very homogeneous profile for the variables analysed, finding them favourable to the inquiry as a teaching approach, although showing some concrete difficulties. We also found some statistically significant differences regarding gender and previous academic and teaching experience. However, the prior research background associated with the science and technological degrees completed by the participants seemed not to affect their perception about inquiry. We finally raise some implications of the results obtained and give some orientation that might be useful for the initial training of secondary science teachers.
Highlights
In current Science Education, different international educational institutions and initiatives strongly recommend the use of methodologies such as inquiry (Lederman et al, 2013)
Results on the Inquiry Teaching-Learning Process Figure 1 shows the results regarding aspects analysed in the teaching-learning process of inquiry, related to interaction in the classroom, the relevance given to experimental activities, and the inquiry itself
All the pre-service secondary science teachers (PSSTs) consider experimental activities important (2a), and their perceptions about how they should be developed are closer to the classical approaches on them since the vast majority (87%) consider it is essential that students carry out experiments/simulations/modelling following their instructions (2d), which may lead to a distancing from inquiry activities
Summary
In current Science Education, different international educational institutions and initiatives strongly recommend the use of methodologies such as inquiry (Lederman et al, 2013). The application of the IBST in the classroom continues to be a challenge since it involves a change in the teaching role towards actions that make it a guide and a motivator, researcher, mentor, or collaborator (Crawford, 2014) This change poses a series of dilemmas for teachers, mostly rooted in beliefs and perceptions that, as Binns and Popp (2013) point out, affect their own identity, influencing their pedagogical decisions and strategies, and might be an obstacle to the practice of inquiry. This latter aspect has been studied to date mainly for in-service teachers (Silm et al, 2015)
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