Teacher Beliefs and Instructional Practice in Science Education

Overview and Sampling

Mueller, J. C., & Zeidler, D. L. (1998). A case study of teacher beliefs in contemporary science education goals and classroom practices. [Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching at the 71st conference in San Diego, California, April 19–22, 1998].

The research uses a case study methodology, and as such, a sampling frame is not particularly relevant. That said, the selection of subjects for the case study did follow an empirical path. First, the researchers were interested in learning about the perceptions of science teachers who were open to educational reform issues. This led them to the Coalition of Essential Schools and the member school Souhegan High School, an institution that describes itself as a learning community focused on adapting its instructional practice to the needs of its students.

Second, the science teachers at the high school responded to a survey that helped the researchers pinpoint the strength of conviction each held toward the declared science goals as practitioners. Third, based on the survey outcomes, the researchers approached three science teachers, gained their agreement to participate in the study, and secured consent to conduct multiple in-depth interviews and observe their classroom teaching on multiple occasions.

Methodology and Instrumentation

Interviews were conducted with the study participants to explore several research inquiries. One important purpose of the interviews was to perform member checks with the interviewees regarding the accuracy of the classroom observations. A central focus of the interviews was probing the beliefs the participants held with respect to science education goals and the relationship between their actual instruction and those beliefs — in other words, the researchers were interested in the degree of fidelity between beliefs and praxis.

Additional goals pursued through the interviews included ensuring that participants understood the assessment objectives and verifying categorical definitions in order to maintain clear links to the research questions. The researchers employed a guide for scoring classroom instruction in developing their semi-structured interviews. The study incorporated focused classroom observations, in-depth interviews, ongoing categorical analysis of field notes, reflexive journals — a form of memoing — and video recordings of the science teachers engaged in instruction.

Data Analysis and Trustworthiness

The researchers thoroughly addressed trustworthiness — a construct used in qualitative research in place of reliability and validity, which are appropriate for positivist inquiry — through their treatment of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Data were collected over sufficient periods of time to assure redundancy in the narrative accounts. Triangulation was built into the methodology, and member check procedures were used to verify the researchers' interpretations of interview content. An audit trail in the form of a reflexive journal was also maintained.

Results and Results Adequacy

The science teachers who participated in the study showed strong evidence that they value the goals of contemporary science education. The researchers were able to construct a solid inventory of the beliefs held by the science teachers that align with science instruction best practices and learning objectives. Further, with regard to the second sub-question, the science teacher participants appeared to prefer goals that align with the current thrust in science education over older curricular and instructional goals.

Regarding results adequacy, the analysis of the strength-of-conviction measure was conducted by calculating weighted means. The researchers also examined the relationship between prior goals and current goals by comparing the weighted means of paired goals. The data were not entirely clear in instances where the participating science teachers indicated that they held beliefs aligned with past goals. The research did not appear to achieve clarity in all of the goal-pair analyses on the index used to measure association in terms of strength of conviction.