Saudi Primary School Science Teachers’ Beliefs: Teaching New Curriculum

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Purpose of the study

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has employed much effort in improving its education infrastructure; however, the curriculum developers have not fully explored the beliefs of the targeted teachers. The purpose of this study is to explore the perceptions and beliefs that the teachers have regarding the new curriculum, the new textbooks, and the general reforms in science education at the primary schools.

Background literature

In the contemporary world, teachers encounter various challenges because of the shifting policies and changing societal needs (Bell & Donnelly, 2007). Saudi Arabia established a mandatory public primary education system in the 1960s and since then, the government has improved its educational infrastructure to reduce illiteracy levels. In the recent past, curricular developers identified a need to reform the educational system for elementary school science to help students to think scientifically instead of gaining basic scientific information (Snider & Roehl, 2007; Ryder & Banner, 2010).

Therefore, the ministry of education adopted new curricula that emphasize student-centered learning (Abell & Lederman, 2006; Aikenhead, 2007). Students find it worthwhile to understand concepts and employ them in various situations instead of memorizing a single scientific concept (Wenner, 2001; Isler & Cakiroglu, 2009).

Theoretical framework

Adapting new curricula is a complex process that involves sponsors, advocates, and change agents, who have to attain a given set of goals (Klassen, Bong, Usher, Chong, Huan, Wong, & Georgiou, 2009). In this case, the ministry of education is the sponsor while the school heads are the advocates and change agents, who have to manipulate the targeted science teachers. Since the entire exercise involves a chain of people, everyone’s perception is highly significant in the implementation of the new curricula (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk, 2001). Therefore, it is imperative to study the beliefs of the target agents, as their beliefs would have strong repercussions on the entire system (Hall & Hord, 2001; Macnab, 2003).

Research questions/hypotheses

It is hypothetical that the attitudes and beliefs of educators have a significant effect on the aspect of teaching (Christou, Eliophotou-Menon, & Philippou, 2004; Poulou, 2007). To ascertain the truth of the statement, the following research questions are imperative.

What are Saudi primary school science teachers’ beliefs in the new curriculum?
Do the beliefs have any connections with specific political, social, cultural values?
Do the teachers’ beliefs about the new curriculum affect their instructional decisions?
Do the beliefs, attitudes, and adoption of the new curricula have anything to do with global occurrences?
Did the curriculum developers use feasible criteria to adopt the new curricular, or did they take advantage of the defenceless teachers to make new implementations?

Definitions of key terms

Attitudes are the predispositions that teachers have developed towards the new curriculum.
Beliefs are the existing naïve theories about the new curriculum that affect the actions and statements of the believers (Alghamdi & Al-Salouli, 2012).

Research methodology

To develop a decisive research report, there will be a need to employ a quantitative research design (Corbetta, 2003; Bryman, 2008). The researcher will employ a witty approach in studying the public and private schoolteachers’ beliefs about the new curriculum.

Research and data collection procedures

Firstly, the researcher will select a study population that will give the best information about the study topic. Science teachers from randomly selected private and public primary schools will take part in the study. A questionnaire will be imperative in collecting data about the teachers’ beliefs in the new curriculum and the new science textbooks. It will be necessary to carry out a pilot study to collect some trial data and measure the validity of the data collection instruments. The researcher will analyze and evaluate the trial data to determine if it will attain the required results. If need be, the researcher will have to amend the questionnaire accordingly to meet the research requirements.

After successful completion of the data collection exercise, the researcher will feed the data into the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). A descriptive analysis will give a concise view of the demographic characteristics of the participants while a factor analysis of the leaker-scale data will bring out the strength of the beliefs of the respondents (Field, 2005; Fraenkel & Wallen, 2006). Thereafter, the researcher will carry out a Pearson’s correlation analysis to investigate the existence of relationships between the dependent and independent variables.

Significance of the research

The entire research will be highly significant, as it will outlay the perceptions that the Saudi primary school science teachers have towards the new curricula (Nagy, 2002). Through the research, the ministry of education will highlight the stresses that the teachers encounter and find ways to address them accordingly.

Ethical considerations

Confidentiality, informed consent, and justice are the main ethical concerns that the researcher will consider (Vanden, Sleegers, Geijsel, & Vandenberghe, 2000). The raw data will be highly protected, and the public will only access the research results once the data is in report form. In the entire study, the researcher will be time conscious, speech conscious, and extremely respectful to all the participants.

Proposed timetable for the research.

Activity	Timescale
Month 1	Writing and presenting the first draft of the research proposal, and making changes according to the supervisor’s instructions
Month 2	Preparing the data collection instruments and doing a pilot survey
Month 3	Amending the data collection instruments according to the results of the pilot survey and preparing for the data collection exercise
Month 4 and 5	Data collection
Month 6	Data analysis, preparation of the final draft of the research report, and presentation of the report

Anticipated problems and limitations

As indicated, the new elementary science curriculum depends on books published in America. Some teachers may have negative insights about the new curriculum that would cripple the local publishing companies. Therefore, they may give prejudiced information that could threaten the reliability and validity of the data. To counter this, the researcher will have to approach respondents calmly and request them to fill the questionnaire without prejudice.

References

Abell, S. K., & Lederman, N.G. (2006). Handbook of research on science education. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Aikenhead, G. S. (2007). Science education for everyday life. New York: Teachers’ College Press.

Alghamdi, A.K., & Al-Salouli, M.S. (2012). Saudi elementary school science teachers’ beliefs: Teaching science in the new millennium. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, 1(1), 1-25.

Bell, J., & Donnelly, J. (2007). Positioning applied science in schools: Uncertainty, opportunity, and risk in curriculum reform. Leeds: University of Leeds.

Bryman, A. (2008). Social research methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Christou, C., Eliophotou-Menon, M., & Philippou, A. (2004). Teachers’ concerns regarding the adoption of a new mathematics curriculum: An application of CBAM. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 57(4), 157-176.

Corbetta, P. (2003). Social research: Theory, methods and techniques. London: Sage.

Field, A. (2005). Discovering statistics: Using SPSS for windows. London: SAGE Publications.

Fraenkel, J. R., & Wallen, N. E. (2006). How to design and evaluate research in education. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc.

Hall, G.E., & Hord, S.M. (2001). Implementing change: patterns, principles, and potholes. Boston: Allyn & Bacon Publishers.

Isler, I., & Cakiroglu, E. (2009). Teachers’ efficacy beliefs and perceptions regarding the implementation of new primary mathematics curriculum.

Klassen, R. M., Bong, M., Usher, E. L., Chong, W., Huan, V. S., Wong, I. F., & Georgiou, T. (2009). Exploring the validity of teachers’ self-efficacy scale in five countries. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 34(1), 67-76.

Macnab, D.S. (2003). Implementing change in mathematics education. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 35(1), 197-216.

Nagy, M. S. (2002). Using a single-item approach to measure facet job satisfaction. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 75 (1), 77-86.

Poulou, M. (2007). Personal teaching efficacy and its sources: Student teachers’ perceptions. Educational Psychology, 27(3), 191-218.

Ryder, J., & Banner, I. (2010). Multiple aims in the development of a major reform of the national curriculum for science in England. International Journal of Science Education, 32(1), 709-725.

Snider, V. E., & Roehl, R. (2007). Teachers’ beliefs about pedagogy and related issues. Psychology in Schools, 44(8), 873-886.

Tschannen-Moran, M., & Woolfolk H.A. (2001). Teacher efficacy: Capturing and elusive construct. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(4), 783-805.

Vanden B.R., Sleegers, P., Geijsel, F., & Vandenberghe, R. (2000). Implementation of an innovation: Meeting the concerns of teachers. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 26(2), 331-350.

Wenner, G. (2001). Science and mathematics efficacy beliefs held by practicing and prospective teachers: A five-year perspective. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 10(1), 181-187.

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