The impact of the SEDIBA project on the attitude of participating educators towards chemistry and chemistry teaching

Abstract

Physical science is not a popular subject at school. This negative tendency can be observed in both educators and learners. One of the main causes of this lack of popularity is embedded in the attitude towards chemistry and chemistry teaching. This negative attitude can be attributed to the following factors: Lack of teaching aids, Visualisation, Perception of science, Single approach to science teaching, Scientific concept knowledge, Environmental influences. Most of these factors can be addressed by changing the attitude towards chemistry and approach to chemistry teaching of the educators. This study was aimed at probing into science educators' attitude towards chemistry and chemistry teaching. The empirical survey was conducted amongst a group of 37 science educators registered for an Advanced Certificate in Science (ACE) in the SEDIBA Project at the North West University, Potchefstroom Campus. The investigation was done by means of a pre-test and a post-test. The results of both the pre-test and post-test were used to analyse the educators' attitude towards chemistry and chemistry teaching. Some of the factors influencing the attitude of educators towards teaching science that were investigated were: Use of teaching aids, Application of different approaches to science teaching, Attitude towards science. Results indicated that the above mentioned factors resulted in educators having a negative attitude towards chemistry and chemistry teaching prior to exposure to the SEDIBA project. The impact of the SEDIBA project was measured over a period of three months. Although there was not a big significant improvement over this short space of time on the attitude of participating educators, results based on other criteria showed that intervention by instruction over time resulted in the in case of positive attitudes towards chemistry and chemistry teaching. This study indicates that a well-designed teacher program can change the attitude of education towards science.