Survey of Elementary Teachers' Responses on the Introduction of Elementary Science Experiment Specialists

초등학교 과학 실험 전담 교사 제도 도입 방안에 대한 의견 조사

The purpose of this study was to examine whether the new introduction of elementary science experiment specialist is appropriate under the current situation of serious emphasis of the importance in science experiments in elementary science in Korea. For this study, the survey items were developed twice through the preliminary study. The results show that most elementary teachers consider the importance of experiment in elementary science and the critical role of science experiments to increase students' curiosity and scientific understanding. About 80% of the teachers stressed the professionalism in elementary science. Although 65% of the teachers believed their having basic professionalism, 53% of them appealed the difficulty in teaching science experiments to students. Nevertheless, 67.5% of the teachers opposed to the idea of teaching elementary science in separation between experiment and theory in science, and only 8% of them agreed the idea of induction or adoption of the college graduates majoring in science and engineering, or holding the secondary teacher's certificate. Further, over 60% of the teachers responded no necessity of inducing the new policy of elementary science specialist. Many numbers of teachers revealed their serious worries about the new policy because of their past experience to suffer from the side effects of inducing the teachers with secondary teacher certificate to the elementary school. In particular, they also made a proposal to make a good use of the current system of exclusive elementary science teacher in Korea. The educational implication and suggestions for policy making were discussed.