A professional development framework supporting life sciences educators' pedagogical content knowledge in the relationship between the human nervous system and the endocrine system

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine whether current professional development programmes are effective for Life Sciences educators within the Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Education to gain pedagogical content knowledge. The main problem focused on the quality of education determined by the quality of educators who are knowledgeable of the content and knowledgeable about strategies to be used to convey learning of the content. An objective of the study included determining whether current Life Sciences educators gain aspects of pedagogical content knowledge through teacher professional development programmes. The objectives also included the development of a Conceptual Framework Model to improve Life Sciences education. The study made use of a quantitative research methods approach. A structured questionnaire in the format of scaled questions namely the Linkert scale was used. The target population comprised of 210 Life Sciences educators in the Umlazi District of the Kwa-Zulu Natal Department of Education. For the purpose of pretesting, 10 samples were randomly selected. Therefore, from a target population 200 Life Sciences educators, 132 samples were randomly selected for the purpose of this study. A total of 127 questionnaires were returned by the sample respondents, providing a high response rate of 96%. Data were analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26.0.0. Results were shown as descriptive statistics of the quantitative data obtained in the form of graphs, cross tabulations and other figures. The use of correlations and chi-square test values were interpreted and used to test the 10 hypotheses for various components of this study. The researcher observed some significant results from the data analysis which included: more than 40% of respondents required a form of professional development to improve pedagogical content knowledge and that more than 40% of teacher training workshops need to be aspect specific. This study culminated with proposals for future research in this field of study.