Exploring Science Teachers’ Affective States: Pedagogical Discontentment, Self-efficacy, Intentions to Reform, and Their Relationships

Exploring the interaction between Science teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs and pedagogical discontentment: An attempt to understand why science education reform fails

“…Although empirical research has largely supported the claim that teachers with high self-efficacy are more likely to feel ownership of reform and enhance student achievement compare to teachers with low selfefficacy are, there remain empirical evidences that high efficacious teachers are more likely to resist reform practices (Kahveci, Kahveci, Mansour and Alarfaj, 2018;Lardy & Mason, 2011;Saka, 2007;Southerland, Sowell, Blanchard and Granger, 2011;Wheatley, 2000). For instance, Favre and Knight (2016) found that teachers with high self-efficacy showing low fidelity and little dedication to reform implementations illustrate diminutive effort to create student-centered classroom environments or engage their students in reform-based practices.…”

Teaching Interrupted: How COVID-19 Turned Thoughts into Practice

“…The CC instructors were using EBIPs, particularly experimenting with the flipped classroom model and also using active learning strategies in their instruction. As conceptual change theory asserts, “for any change in teaching practices, teachers must be discontent with a current practical theory and find a new one sensible, beneficial, illuminating, or enlightening” ( 8 ). This can be seen in Professor N. Klein’s discussion of the flipped classroom, as she had been entertaining the idea of flipping her classroom after being introduced to the concept in her CAPER coursework, but had yet to actually make the change.…”

“…This study relies on the concepts of pedagogical discontentment and contextual discontentment as the framework for analyzing the changes that the CC instructors enacted during the transition to online teaching. This research fills a gap in existing conceptual change literature, as there is very little qualitative research on how these concepts are enacted in the science classroom (8), much less during a global pandemic. This research also contributes to understanding how professional development impacts CC instructors, which, as previously stated, is essential to not only the CAPER project but the CC system in general.…”

“…A second concept that is important in conceptual change theory is contextual discontentment. Contextual discontentment can be understood as the “teachers’ assessment of contextual aspects including working conditions and other external factors such as standardized testing, limited lesson hours to cover content, facilities, or paperwork” ( 8 ). Other factors that contribute to contextual discontentment are salary, relationships between colleagues, and relationships between the teacher and their supervisors.…”

“…More recent scholarship has built upon, and advanced, conceptual change theory as a means to study how and why instructors enact pedagogical changes, specifically in the field of science education (6)(7)(8)(9). In addition to individual change, this more recent work has expanded conceptual change theory to look at the systems and context in which instructors change their pedagogical practices (7).…”