Abstract
Teachers’ beliefs and attitudes are important to their professional development and their integration of science and math into classroom teaching. Thus, this study focused on a group of experienced science and math teachers enrolled in an in-service professional development program. Their attitudes and beliefs toward the content, pedagogy, and integration of science and math were investigated. Eighty-nine teachers, including 52 math and 32 science, completed questionnaires and eight teachers were subsequently interviewed. The questionnaire used to collect data was “Attitudes and Beliefs about the Nature of and the Teaching of Mathematics and Science” (McGinnis, et al, 2002). It consisted of five scales: beliefs about mathematics and science, attitudes toward mathematics and science, beliefs about the teaching mathematics and science, attitudes toward learning to teach mathematics and science, and attitudes toward teaching mathematics and science. Results showed significant differences between science and math teachers in their attitudes toward science and math, and their desires for taking further math courses in the professional development program. In addition, there were different views between science and math teachers on the usefulness of technology, the definition of “operation”, and the use of “daily-life example”. Suggestions for more study were provided in the paper.
| Keywords: | integrating science and mathematics; mathematics and science teachers; teacher’ beliefs; teacher’ attitudes |
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