CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

Chapter I
Introduction

1.1 Introduction

This section provides an outline of the problem studied in this work/ thesis, some background information and main hypotheses. Each section of the introduction is related to a section of different chapters of the thesis. The number referred in the brackets refers to the chapter and section of the thesis.

1.2 Statement of the problem

This study was directed towards the development of and evaluation of an intensive (short) (one month) duration training programme for Nepalese science teachers. The programme was based upon the basic competencies essential for science teachers (1.4). It was designed to help them to teach more effectively, that is, base their teaching upon modern view of science (3.2) and as demanded by the rationales for science teaching (3.5)

1.3 Assumption

a. This study has assumed that classroom teaching behaviours reflect the general concept of science in a given education system.

b. That the teachers apply the techniques learned from this training program.

1.4 Sequence of development

Informal evidence indicated strongly that training programme procedure as described in the case studies of this thesis, was likely to be effective and that they could change classroom teaching behaviours in the direction of the suggestions made by the teaching specialists. Training sessions basically with similar approach were conducted in different parts of Nepal (Mali 1981, Bhatta 1974, Singh 1984) by the ‘Thirteen Teacher Educators’, specially trained for conducting in-service training in different districts of Nepal (2.3). The investigator was one of them.

Because the training procedure seemed effective the investigator adopted the basic structure of the training programme on different occasion to conduct the training programme and based the procedure for this Ph.D. works as well.

Form Sand et al (1984):
“Mr. Dongol, in Nepal after first part of his Ph. D. Work in the UK, acted as a tutor through out the seminar. …. Mr. Dongol made valuable contributions on educational theory, methodology, and support for teaching practice. His lesson planning session included practical work and apparatus construction, and he was as planned, able to combine his tutorial work with some work on his Ph.D. topic, ..”(p.7)

The training procedure was incorporated in the Dhankuta seminars because of the investigator’s involvement (Sands and Carre 19181; Sand and Kershaw 1983; Sands et al).

The investigator has been interested to develop it into a complete training package programme so that trainees would not require to repeat the training for the same purpose, mainly because the investigator found the training procedure was effective. Experiences developed confidence in him that it could be improved making it feasible to the situation of Nepal. Sands and Waddington (1979) mention his work along the line as follows:
“.. in particular the laboratory of Mr. Dev bahadur Dongol and colleagues, in which lively and interesting work is going on with Diploma students. In this laboratory science equipment has been made from cheap local materials: porter’s baskets were fastened together to make storage racks, or used to teach number; balances, telephones, pinhole camera’s and much other materials had been made from discarded or cheap materials; bottles were cut to make beakers or measuring cylinder and many good ideas were being put into practice. Mr. Dongol himself is very keen to be involved in all aspects of teacher education and he has a number of ideas for teacher training, some outlined in two papers written by him” (p.18 and ref.7).

From Sands and Carre’ (1981):

“Mr. Dongol pioneered this type of in-service training program, and the development of low cost materials, while he was at the Pokhara Campus (see section 3.3 of the report, Sands and Waddington, 1979) and brings intimate knowledge of the teachers as well as years of experience to the task (p.8)”.

“Mr. Dongol was extremely effective. Before the seminar he helped with the preliminary organisation by corresponding with MKS, and visiting the British Council in Kathmandu to liase with Roger Wilkins. He also visited Dhankuta for 4 days with Mr. Chiranjibi Sharma from the ministry of education, and arrived the seminar place itself 3 days before the UK tutors arrived. On both these occasions he organised materials, discussed with head teachers and science teachers, and other personnel in Dhankuta, and taught science classes in the lower secondary school in order to get to know children before we exposed them to the participants. When we arrived in Dhankuta we found that a great deal of ground work had been done.”

From Sands and Kershaw (1983):

"Mr. Dongol’s considerable expertise, commitment and effectiveness were commented fully in last year’s report ... he made a preliminary 3 day visit to Dhankuta in November to discuss arrangements with the staff at the ERC and the schools, and he ran the 2 week advance seminar in December with the 8 group leaders."
During the seminar he not only participated fully in the teaching and saw day to day organisation, but before and through out the course he was much involved with problems associated with the participants’ welfare: their sleeping arrangements, washing
facilities, sanitation, food and so on. He ensured that -as far as possible - any such problems were rapidly resolved.
Both BRITISH Tutors agree that without Mr. Dongol the seminar could not have been so successful.” (P.5)

Here the investigator must say that those previous experiences were based upon observations using best of his common sense and his grasp of the rationales for science teaching, but without the knowledge about the theories, principle and views of educational technology on the development and evaluation of a training programme as an innovation. Those opportunities provided practical background to the investigator to base this study.

So the training programme outlined in chapter IV is the result of the previous experiences the readings during this Ph.D. course and three case studies and a follow up visit of one of them (chapter VI) done in Nepal.

1.5 Base situation regarding science teaching in Nepal.

The teaching learning situation in Nepal has been shown to be ineffective (2.4). It is rote-memory oriented. The textbooks, curriculum development, examinations, teacher training and teaching methods are all directed for content rote-memorisation. Memorisation equates the learning.

The understanding of theory, principle/ philosophy of science among teachers in particular is not in accordance with the modern view of science and rationales for science teaching (2.4)

1.6 A proposition - a discussion

The base situation as indicated in section 1.2 above is probably due to two reasons. Firstly, there is the existence of deep tradition of rote learning in Nepalese culture. Secondly, the modern view of science (3.2) is not understood. The science education is rote-memory oriented because the prevalent notion about science in Nepal is likewise. As result, the teaching learning situation in Nepal does not reflect the principles of the teaching and learning recommended by teaching specialists for effective teaching learning classroom management. Teaching technologists seem to agree that an understanding of the modern view of science is essential for the adoption or application of effective teaching learning activities (3.5). Thus a programme for popularising or diffusing the modern view of science (can prove to be) useful for the development of science education in Nepal as well. This was so thought for developing countries as well, and at the foundation level in Nepal and in all places where similar base situation prevails.

(It is thought that) one of the practical approaches for dissemination of modern view of science is through schools by changing classroom-teaching behaviours of (science) teachers accordingly (2.5). Besides, a course as training activities, some methods of evaluation of teaching is also helpful.
The tool has to be in synergy with rationales for science teaching. At the same time, it should meet other criteria as an evaluation tool such as validity, reliability, unbiased, standard language, and above all helpful to improve teaching as demanded by the rationales for science teaching. The evaluation of classroom teaching behaviours for this purpose can probably be done best by using the Category System (3.17).

In a situation such as that exists in Nepal, the starting point to bring about educational changes for improving science education seem possible only through the popularisation of philosophical bases of science and rationales for teaching and learning. The best utilisation of the available resources as they are available seems to be the only best approach. Indeed it may be argued that the only practical way is to work through schools and involve (science) teachers as change agents by improving their classroom teaching behaviours as demanded by the rationales for teaching. Teachers require training anyway for the purpose. They do rote-oriented teaching because of the tradition of teaching and because they lack the understanding of the nature of science (as explained by the teaching specialists). It seems no other reasons can explain existence of such a situation. This is not possible by giving training to top personnel or ministers (they also have the same tradition view or understanding).

Thus a short intensive training programme focused around the minimum requirements, the actual works teachers have to do while teaching, could prove to be the most efficient way of providing training to teachers. The change of classroom teaching behaviours of teachers as demanded by the rationales for (science) teaching, thus popularisation of philosophical bases of science is a must for qualitative improvement of education.

Educationists agree in principle that teachers are the backbone of an education system (3.19). Any education system grows with and through the changes of capabilities of teachers (3.19). So teachers must be prepared for this challenge. They should know how to have done teaching confidently. Through reflecting rationales for teaching in their teaching styles they should help to find ways of improving and developing education system suitable for their own country qualitatively (Brown and Donald 1981, Bennett 1980, Riaz 1983).

1.7 Basic Minimum requirements

The minimum requirements of (science )teacher for teaching can be stated as follow (3.1)
1. Knowledge of contents of textbooks (curriculum) from which teachers have to teach.
2. Related experiments and activities from textbooks.
3. Skills and abilities to use local resources
4. Skills and abilities to use suitable and feasible teaching methods in their own prevalent situation  (communication skills).
5. Some basic related educational theories.

1.8 Goals of Research

The main goal of this research was to devise, try out, and evaluate a training programme, which could be used or implemented to develop student centred teaching behaviours in (Nepalese science) teachers in shortest possible periods of time.

In the process of developing the training procedure/ program this study focused on:
- Identification of basic science teaching activities that can be adopted for teaching (science) in Nepal.
- Identification of the essential contents for the training program (1.4, 3.1, chapter IV)
- Developing or working out training procedures and structure including model lesson (with various practical activities as examples based on local resources chapter IV, 4.7) to exemplify the teaching methods - the communication skills through demonstration teaching.
- Estimating shortest possible duration for the training programme chapter IV)
- Using and evaluating the classroom teaching recording system, the Activity Category System Instrument (developed by Harrie E. Caldwel (3.17)
- Suggesting the implementation procedure for the training programme (5.2, 9.2)
- Identifying and analysing the barriers for change, locally and nationally, and suggesting ways of overcoming those barriers (5.2, 9.1, and 9.2)

1.8 The usefulness in Nepal
The investigator believes that this research work should be particularly useful if implemented through the new science education project funded by the Asian bank and proposed by the British council team (Young et al) in which the investigator was also involved (2.3). One of the two major parts of the project involves the setting up of 25 SEDUs (Science Education Development Units) across the country. This type of short-term in-service course the investigator has developed can be given to science teachers from the surrounding districts (which are 75 in Nepal) during and after the lifetime of the project.
The work the investigator has outlined, it is hoped, will form the basis for the nation-wide training of the science teachers.

1.9 Hypotheses

The study was started with the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1
At the end of the training the teaching behaviours of the participating teachers would be student centred. That is, according to the tool ACI (6.3) the Activity Ratio would be equal to one or more than one.

Hypothesis 2

The percentage of time spent on student centred activities by teachers while teaching would be 50% or more at the end of the training.

Hypothesis 3

There would be a significant difference in the percentage of time spent on student-centred activities, and on Activity Ratio between data of the following groups:

- The pre-test and post-test of each of the following different groups for which the training was conducted, (i.e. the Dhankuta and Lalitpur groups).

The post tests results would be significantly better than the pre-test values.

- The post-tests of this study and the data from Pfau (1977) (Nepal grade 9, Nepal grade 5, and US grade 5).

The post-test values would be significantly better than Pfau’s (1977) results.

- The pre-tests and the US grade 5 from Pfau (1977).

The US grade 5 would be significantly be higher than the pre-test values.

Hypothesis 4

There would no significant difference between the teaching behaviours i.e. percentage of time spent on student-centred activities and on activity ratio between the following groups:

- Pre-test of this study and data on Nepal 5 and Nepal 9 from Pfau(1977).

1.10 The main structure of the training programme

The description of the developed training programme is in chapter IV and analysis of its characteristics based on theories is described in chapter V. The entire background knowledge of theories on the basis of literature is given in the chapter III. The main structure of the training procedure is as follows:

I. Acquaintance Phase

In this phase participants are introduced to the training programme and discussed the problems and constraints related to science teaching in Nepal.

II. Exemplification Phase

Demonstration teaching followed by discussions are done by trainers during this phase to exemplify ways of overcoming or solving some of the problems discussed in Phase I.

III. Discussion for Group Decision

A discussion is done to enable the group to take a group decision about the training on the basis of the previous two phases i and ii.

And,

IV. Actual training - the Practice Teaching Phase (clinically supervised lesson approach)

The rest of the training period, about three weeks, is spent on training activities as demonstrated and discussed in previous three phases to provide practices to participants. It consists of preparation, planning, teaching and observations, and discussions on teaching and training sessions.