A survey of Science Education in public secondary schools in selected counties of East Tennessee

This study involved the investigation of relationships of information about science teaching, science education instructional practices and conditions prevailing during the 1977-1978 school year in public secondary schools in five selected counties in the Eastern region of Tennessee.

The major purposes of this study were to examine the following specific questions: (1) What were the qualifications, demographic data, and professional characteristics of science teaching personnel in public secondary schools, (2) What were the current trends in science course offerings, (3) What were the perceptions of special groups to the importance of selected factors relating to the offering of viable science programs and how did these differ by groups, and (4) What were the attitudes and concerns of special groups toward science education and how did these differ by groups?

Three questionnaires were devised by the researcher for three subpopulations in the study following a comprehensive survey of the literature and consultation with experts in the fields of science education and curriculum and instruction. Questionnaires were distributed to 174 secondary science teachers. Five-hundred' questionnaires were made available to science students and 500 to parents of science students. The questionnaire return percentages were; 79 for the science teachers, 58 from the science students, and 36 from the parents.

Findings. The science teachers in the five counties surveyed had a mean age of 33 years. The ratio of male to female science teachers was one to one. All science teachers had received the BS or BA degree with 42 percent of those teachers having attained the MS degree. Two-thirds of those teachers receiving undergraduate degrees majored in the sciences. At the graduate level only one-fourth of the MS degree recipients received graduate training in the sciences. A mean of approximately 10 years of teaching experience for four experience categories was presented in the tabulated data. One-half of the teachers are responsible for teaching two or more courses in two or more grade levels for the l977- 1978 schoo1 year. Three-fourths of the responding teachers taught five or more classes each day.

Over 80 percent of the respondents had not participated in any science course development in-service programs since 1972. Only 8 percent indicated they were currently using Science Curriculum Improvement Project materials while 92 percent were currently, as of 1977-1978, offering the conventional science courses in their science curriculum.

Science class enrollment in individual classes was high in the lower grade levels (e.g. 37 in seventh grade General Science), and lowest in the higher grade levels (e.g. 1l in twelfth grade Biology II).

The three subpopulations were in general positive agreement concerning their opinions on selected factors which are essential to quality science education in their schools.

Facilities, science teaching staff, and science curriculum were identified by all subpopulations as contributing most to the quality of

vi the science programs at their schools. More than three-fourths of the subpopulation groups indicated they were satisfied with their schools' science education programs.

The three subpopulations indicated strong agreement concerning what secondary science education "is" and what it "should be" in their responses to a 32 item "Attitudes and Concerns" list.

Based upon these data, efforts should be made to: (1) interest science teachers in pursuing graduate degrees with more emphasis in science and science related courses, and (2) promote teacher involvement in science in-service education programs to provide a mechanism for implementing usage of materials from Science Curriculum Improvement Projects and other curriculum materials as they are developed.