Using the curriculum emphasis concept to investigate teachers’ curricular beliefs in the context of educational reform

Abstract

Abstract This paper reports a study on teachers' domain‐specific beliefs about the chemistry curriculum for upper‐secondary education in The Netherlands. Teachers' beliefs were investigated using a questionnaire focused on the goals of the chemistry curriculum. The design of the questionnaire was based on three curriculum emphases: 'fundamental chemistry', 'chemistry, technology and society', and 'knowledge development in chemistry'. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of Dutch chemistry teachers. The results indicate that, on the whole, the curriculum emphasis 'fundamental chemistry' received the strongest support. This is in accordance with the content and the tradition of the Dutch chemistry curriculum. When the two types of upper‐secondary education were compared, it appeared that 'chemistry, technology and society' was almost equally valued for both types of education. However, the curriculum emphasis, 'knowledge development in chemistry', was considered much more important for pre‐university education than for senior general secondary education. Keywords: chemistry teacherscurriculum reformscience educationteacher knowledge Acknowledgements We wish to thank Ben Smit of ICLON Graduate School of Teaching, Leiden University, for his assistance in designing the instrument and analysing the data. In addition, we are grateful to the National Association of Science Education in The Netherlands for allowing us to use their member directory and general support of the study. Notes 1. The seven emphases in Roberts (1995 Roberts, D. A. 1995. Junior high school science transformed: analysing a science curriculum policy change. International Journal of Science Education, 17(4): 493–504. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]: 497) are here re‐ordered. 2. A 5‐point scale was used to score these items, ranging from 1: 'completely disagree', through 3: 'do not agree, but do not disagree either', to 5: 'completely agree'. A sixth option ('not applicable') was added. 3. This set of items was added to explore the relationships between teachers' curricular beliefs and their general educational beliefs. The results of this investigation are described elsewhere (van Driel et al. 2005 van Driel, J. H., Bulte, A. M. W. and Verloop, N. 2005. The conceptions of chemistry teachers about teaching and learning in the context of curriculum innovation. International Journal of Science Education, 27(3): 303–322. [Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar]). 4. The questionnaire was mailed in April 2003 with a letter of invitation, in which the relevance of the study was explained and the approval of NVON of the study was mentioned. The letter referred to the possibility of people not being able to, or not wishing to, return the questionnaire. In that case, they were asked to return a non‐response form, which contained four possible reasons for not responding ((a) I am not a chemistry teacher in upper‐secondary education; (b) These days, I am far removed from the practice of chemical education; (c) I don't have time to answer the questions; (d) I never participate in studies such as this), plus an open alternative (e.g. Other reason …). 5. According to the data of the Ministry of Education, the total number in October 2001 of such teachers was 1001. 6. In addition to the useful response, 147 (15%) persons did not fill in the questionnaire, but returned the non‐response form instead. From their answers, it appeared that these persons did not belong to the target group of the present study (i.e. active chemistry teachers in upper‐secondary education). For instance, 65 persons indicated that they were not chemistry teachers (in upper‐secondary education), whereas 45 people considered themselves too far removed from the practice of chemical education (e.g. because of retirement, or having moved to other jobs).