Primary School Teachers’ Views on the Implementation of the 4th Class Science Course Curriculum

Abstract

When it is considered that the basis of the science course is taken in elementary school, the primary school teachers who arealso the practitioners of the science curriculum in this level have great responsibilities in the acquisition of scienceconsciousness. It is thought that updating the science curriculum will cause some changes in practice. Therefore, the opinionsof the primary school teachers about the implementation of the new program are important. This study was carried out inorder to investigate the opinions of the 4th class primary school teachers about the objectives, content, educational statusand evaluation items of the 4th class science curriculum in primary school which was updated in 2018 and implemented as ofthe 2018-2019 academic year. The study group consisted of 5 primary school teachers in the central district of a province inthe Western Black Sea Region, selected from the same primary school according to the criteria sampling. The data werecollected through the semi-structured interview form. There were 10 open-ended questions in the interview form. The datawere analyzed by using a descriptive analysis method. The primary school teachers who participated in the research indicatedthat the science curriculum should be suitable for the level of the students, their simplicity, attractiveness of the subjects,interest and attention, the content in terms of being appropriate for the characteristics of the students and the beginning ofthis course from the third grade of primary school; on the other hand, they stated that the coursebook was not prepared inself-sufficient way, there were too many concepts in the program and too many details were included, the number ofexperiments were low, there was difficulty in providing material for some subjects and there was no laboratory environment.Meeting the equipment needs in schools can increase the effectiveness of the program in practice. Another variable thatincreases the effectiveness of the program in practice is the inclusion of out-of school activities by primary school teachers inscience classes.