Scientific Approaches Used by Science Teachers at the Elementary Level

Abstract

This study was designed to stipulate an image of occurring science practices in elementary schools. The main objective of this study is to investigate the types of science teaching practices that have been preferred to use by science teachers to teach science subjects. All elementary science school students in Lahore City are the population of this study, 300 science students were randomly selected as a sample of this study. The sample represents the population of the study which indicates its generalizability and through this sample researcher trying to find teaching practice in reality that increases its validity. The purpose of the sample from the public (male and female) and private schools (male and female) is to investigate the clear picture of elementary school practices, that increase the generalizability. The study employed a newly developed 40-item questionnaire on a points Likert scale [always=5, often=4, sometimes=3, rarely=2, never=1] which was pilot-tested before the study on 10% of the total parent sample study adopted a survey research design and data was collected through a newly developed reliable questionnaire with Cronbach alpha = 0.95. The data was entered and analyzed by using SPSS. The study result reveals that elementary school science teachers prefer lecture and discussion methods for science teaching. Science teachers should adopt recommended teaching methods to develop a better understanding of science among students.