The intervention programmes have a direct influence on teachers' knowledge of teaching different topics. This paper focuses on how Grade 8 natural science teachers' knowledge developed during an intervention programme. Eight schools were selected to participate, and 25 Grade 8 Natural Sciences teachers from Gauteng province participated. Data were…

Background: Within classroom research, there has long been agreement on the importance of dialogue and discussion for student learning. However, how the concept of knowledge influences classroom conversation needs further investigation, as this has key implications for students' active participation. Purpose: Our research sought to conceptualise…

School science subjects may be informed by curriculum ideologies such as discipline-centered, service-centered, student-centered, or citizen-centered ideologies. The distinct characteristics of each ideology complicate the extent to which science subjects could integrate different curriculum ideologies. Consequently, the present research explored…

This study investigated whether the Key Concepts in Science Project influenced the pedagogical development of Natural Science teachers. Grounded in social constructivism, emphasising collaborative learning and hands-on interaction, the study employed qualitative methods to collect empirical data. Through photographic evidence, field notes, and…

The properness of concepts, principles, and biological contents of natural science textbooks is essential. The aim of this research was to compare the biology content of natural science textbooks for VIII graders in second semester. The indicators used to determine the properness were the accuracy of Core Competence/CC and Basic Competence/BC,…

This study explored what challenges teachers experienced when integrating indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), which are culture specific, into practical work in natural sciences classrooms with diverse learners. Using an exploratory qualitative case study based on an interpretive paradigm, three natural sciences teachers and two subject advisors…

This paper explores the knowledge conceptions in teachers' curriculum making within a classroom perspective through a lens of social realist theory. Curriculum making is conceptualised as a process that occurs between students, teachers, knowledge content and contextual factors, in which teachers must balance various priorities and knowledge…

Background: South Africa's "Language-in-Education Policy" (LiEP) provides for bi/multilingual education, but schools are only supported to choose monolingual English language policies from Grade 4 and ignore the learners' home language or languages as resources for learning. Many teachers translanguage orally, using the learners' home…

To date, little research has been conducted on subject leadership by primary and/or junior secondary school heads of department (HODs). Unlike their senior secondary school counterparts, South African science HODs have the more complex task of leading in the multidisciplinary context of natural sciences (NS1). Such leadership comes in addition to…

Although South Africa is a multilingual country with 11 official languages, English dominates as the language of teaching and instruction in almost all schools. In addition to this, the Natural Sciences teachers at the school of study were cautioned not to use code-switching because the school policy states that the medium of instruction should be…

Curriculum statements and textbooks are considered to be vital support tools for teachers, particularly during times of curriculum innovation. A recent change in South Africa was the controversial inclusion of evolution in the school curriculum, raising serious concerns amongst biology teachers regarding the adequacy of their content and…

Physical sciences teachers in low-quintile South African schools avoid the use of inquiry on the grounds of inefficiency and ineffectiveness for test preparation. This avoidance is consistent with the view that the high cognitive load inquiry offers to extreme novices such as these learners may be prohibitive. Given the purported benefits of…

Demographic factors are among those that influence environmental literacy and, particularly, environmentally responsible behaviours, either directly or due to an aggregation effect dependent on other types of variables. Present study evaluates a set of demographic variables as predictors for environmental literacy among 9th grade students from…

Structured argumentation support environments have been built and used in scientific discourse in the literature. However, to the best our knowledge, there is no research work in the literature examining whether student's knowledge has grown during learning activities with asynchronous argumentation. In this work, an intelligent computer-supported…

In terms of the quality of the teaching of mathematics and the natural sciences, Russia's school students in the fourth and eighth grades rank among the top ten countries out of the fifty-nine countries taking part in the TIMSS-2007 study. For Russia, TIMSS [Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study] is the first international…