Physics Teachers’ Behavioral Control and Normative Beliefs about Teaching Physics According to the National High School Physics Curriculum in Turkey

Date

2014-01-01

Author

Kapucu, Serkan
Yıldırım, Ufuk

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In Turkey, a new Turkish High School Physics Curriculum (THSPC) was put into practice, starting initially with the Grade 9 in the2008-2009 education-year. When compared with the previous ones, this curriculum emphasized the importance of students’ active involvement in learning, use of real-life contexts and development of new skills. Even though what is intended with the new curriculum reflects the global trends in science/physics education, its success (or failure thereof) depends a great deal on teachers since they are the main actors to put the curriculum into practice. Whether teachers can implement the curriculum as intended by the curriculum developers remains an important question. A teacher’s belief is an important factor, among others, that affects his/her implementation of the THSPC. In this regard, the aim of this study was to investigate physics teachers’ beliefs relatedto the teaching of physics according to the THSPC. Four physics teachers from different schools participated in this study. Data were collected through interviews, classroom observations and an open-ended questionnaire. According to our findings, physics teachers believed that teaching physics based on the THSPC helped studentsuse their skills, become more interested in physics lessons, relate physics to their daily life and understand physics better. However, teachers believed that factors such as students’ interest in physics, the university entrance exam, inadequate laboratory facilities, limited lesson hours per week, and lack of information and communication technologies affected the implementation of the THSPC. For more effective implementation of the THSPC, making some changes in the curriculum should be necessary.

Subject Keywords

Curriculum implementation, Physics education, Teacher beliefs, Turkish high school physics curriculum

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/45840

Journal

International Journal of Environmental and Science Education

DOI

https://doi.org/10.12973/ijese.2014.207a

Collections

Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Article

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Citation Formats

S. Kapucu and U. Yıldırım, “Physics Teachers’ Behavioral Control and Normative Beliefs about Teaching Physics According to the National High School Physics Curriculum in Turkey,” International Journal of Environmental and Science Education, pp. 133–157, 2014, Accessed: 00, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://hdl.handle.net/11511/45840.