Teaching science in the laboratory: a study on portuguese school science teachers’ perspectives

Abstract

Laboratory activities may serve diverse educational purposes and be used in different ways. The educational advantages taken from laboratory activities depend strongly on the ways they are performed. Teachers’ conceptions on the best ways to carry out laboratory activities may influence the potential taken from them. This paper aims at finding out how teachers’ representations of practices regarding laboratory activities compare to their perspectives on a possible ideal form of implementing them. Data were collected through an online questionnaire from 159 teachers belonging to schools all over the country. Almost all participants stated that they were used to include laboratory activities in their classes. Besides, most teachers stated that the way they would implement laboratory activities would not change if there was no constrains to putting laboratory activities into practice. Thus, most teachers do not feel the need to change their practices regarding laboratory activities. In addition, teachers that would do things differently did not express theoretically grounded reasons to do so. Hence, research results suggest that pre-service and in-service teacher education must deal with the pros and cons of the diverse ways of using laboratory activities as well as with an analysis of possible strategies to overcome the main constrains face by teachers in Portuguese schools.