Science process skills: A study on primary and junior secondary teachers in Hong Kong

One of the major subjects in the core curriculum for all students in junior secondary schools is the Integrated Science which extensively uses an inquiry approach for science learning. This emphases the theory of learning by doing and encourages students, under teachers’ guidance, to do experiments to find out scientific principles by themselves. On the contrary, science is no longer an independent primary subject. Since 1994, science has been included in a multi-disciplinary subject, General Studies (GS). The implementation of GS has a negative effect on science education in Hong Kong. It is because most primary teachers are now teaching GS but only a few of them have science background. Similar situation is found in Scotland where school inspectors comment that “the neglect of science shows clearly that many teachers at present lack a working knowledge of elementary science” (SED, 1980, p.47). Primary teachers seldom adopts experimental approach in classrooms partly because they do not possess adequate scientific process skills. Meanwhile, some junior secondary science teachers also do not have strong science training. By conducting a questionnaire survey on 100 junior secondary science teachers and 200 primary GS teachers, this study investigates teachers’ self-evaluation on the scientific process skills they possess. Copyright © 2000 The Hong Kong Institute of Education.