出版社：Australian Institutes for Educational Research
摘要：The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) reforms in the South Africanschool system came with an increased emphasis on laboratory practicals for the physicalsciences. While reform implementation is known to be fraught with a myriad ofchallenges, for science teachers such significant changes in the practical componentsmagnified the complex nature of the process. This article reports on physical sciencesteachers’ perceptions and experiences regarding the prescribed laboratory practicals. Weuse complex theory to unpack teachers’ perceptions and their planning (or not) for theimplementation of these prescribed practical components. In this qualitative study, weconducted document analyses on curriculum documents and the laboratory instructionactivities, and semi-structured interviews with three teachers from different schools. Allparticipants perceived the prescription of the laboratory experiments positively. Theprescription of the experimental practical activities is on two levels: firstly, a list ofexperiments for each grade provided by the national Department of Basic Education(DBE), and secondly, authorities at the provincial level provided detailed write-ups thatserve as lesson plans for the practicals. The provided practical laboratory write-upsoffered limited opportunities for good laboratory instruction such as inquiry-basedlearning.
