Teaching of Science Process Skills in Thai Contexts: Status, Supports and Obstacles

Abstract

Teachers are expected to be experts of science process skills and transfer these skills to students through practical science. It was evidenced that Thai science teachers had proper performance of most science process skills. Nevertheless, in classrooms, science process skills seemed barely bound to science teaching and learning activities. Five in-service secondary school science teachers, from the Western Region of Thailand, who participated in a professional development workshop based on social constructivism for enhancing their science process skills and teaching, their performance was assessed after the workshop and revealed their performance ranged from high to highest levels. They also volunteered to participate in a follow-up study to investigate teachers’ integration of science process skills into their science teaching. Data were gathered from classroom observations, interviews, and documentation. The results described each volunteer teacher's science classroom practice, this concluded Thailand's status of science process skills integration into teaching. In the core science courses, Thai teachers regularly engaged students to practical activities, however, with worry of being able to cover the contents included in the standards. Selective science courses were more responsible to promote student understandings and performance of science process skills. Supports and obstacles in integration of the skills into teaching were also discussed.