Thesis (M. Ed. (Science Education)) -- University of Limpopo, 2018 / This study explored the science teachers' views about the nature of science and how
these views influenced their classroom. The study was conducted in three public
quantile-three schools in Dimamo Circuit of Capricorn District-Limpopo Province. It
was a case study with twenty participants filling the open-ended questionnaire with
four teachers who were observed and interviewed. The teachers were from the FET
band with teaching experience ranging between one year and thirty years.
The essential research questions addressed in this study are, namely: What are
science teachers’ views about the nature of science? How do the science teachers’
views about the nature of science influence their classroom practices?
Data were collected all the way through open-ended questionnaires, classroom
observations and semi-structured interviews. The data collected were analysed
through groups of themes. The four teachers observed and interviewed were
grouped as one case.
It was found that most of the teachers held informed views about the nature of
science from both data collected from the open-ended questionnaires and semi structured interviews. There was a group of teachers whose views about the nature
of science being tentative reflected uninformed views and the majority of teachers
revealing uninformed views about the difference between scientific law and scientific
theory. The teachers believed that theories develop into laws. There was also a
majority of teachers who believed that scientific investigation follows only one
universal route. It was also found that the same teachers who reflected informed
views were not able to back them in their classroom practices. The majority of those
teachers reflected no informed views in their classroom as such it was impossible to
tell how their views influenced their classroom practices.
KEY WORDS
Nature of science, Classroom practice, Scientific law, Tentative, Scientific theory
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:ul/oai:ulspace.ul.ac.za:10386/3333 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Chuene, Karabo Justice |
| Contributors | Singh, S. K. |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | xiii, 158 leaves |
| Relation |
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