Fidelity Between Science Teachers' Beliefs and Instructional Essay

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Fidelity Between Science Teachers' Beliefs and Instructional Practice

Mueller, J.C. And 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, on 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 their instructional practice to the needs of their students. Second, the science teachers at the high school responded to a survey that helped the researchers to pinpoint the strength of conviction to the declared science goals that they held as practitioners. Third, based on the survey outcomes, the researchers approached three science teachers and gained agreement that they would participate in the study, grant multiple in-depth interviews, and permit multiple observations of their classroom teaching.

B. Methodology & Instrumentation

Interviews were conducted with the study participants to explore several research inquiries. One important purpose of the interviews was to conduct member checks with the interviewees about the accuracy of the observations in the classrooms . A focus of the interviews was probing the beliefs that the study participants held with respect to science education goals and the relationship between their actual instruction and their beliefs about science education.

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In other words, the researchers were interested in the degree of fidelity between beliefs and praxis. Additional important goals pursued through the interviews were to ensure participants understood the assessment objectives and to verify categorical definitions in order the maintain links to the research questions. The researchers employed the use of a guide for scoring classroom instruction in the development of their semi-structured interviews. The study included focused classroom observations, in-depth interviews, ongoing categorical analysis of field notes, reflexive journals -- a form of memoing -- and video tapes of the science teachers engaged in instruction.

C. Data Analysis

The researchers thoroughly addressed trustworthiness (a construct used in qualitative research instead of reliability and validity, which are appropriate for positivist inquiry) in their treatment of credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. Data was 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 used.

D. Analysis Adequacy

Overall, the description of the qualitative research methods is thorough and sufficiently descriptive for anyone knowledgeable in grounded theory or naturalistic methods of inquiry. Although a reflexive journal is a generally accepted convention in qualitative research, it does not take the place of….....

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