Modification of behaviour in science teaching: A school-based interdisciplinary workshop approach.

The study proposes a conceptual framework for the establishment of an in-service activity as an integral part of the school staff's function. The School-based Interdisciplinary Workshop Approach (S.I.W.A.) is shown to be in accord with social values and with a growing tendency of these values to turn into norms of teaching profession. The proposed approach is based on the assumption that teaching behaviours practiced by teachers in the classroom are linked to the 'climate' of the school and to modes which other teachers accept. Therefore any attempt to modify teaching behaviours has a better chance of success if it is organised as a school-based group activity. On the practical level the study set out to establish a pilot project aimed at producing information about three areas of con-cern: acceptability, effectiveness and feasibility of the proposal. The intention of the project was to modify some behaviours in education. The project was confined to one school year, and consisted of twelve sessions, separated from one another by inter-vals of increasing length, ranging from one to three weeks. The content of the sessions centred on the educational objectives of the scientific methods. The material used was based on a selection of activities devised by the Science Teacher Education Project (STEP). Four schools provided the 'experimental' groups and two others the reference groups. Observation by trained observers and the responses of teachers and pupils to various questionnaires, made up the data-gathering apparatus. The results obtained by the evaluative procedures indicate that in the three relevant areas of concern, the S.I.W.A. had at least some of the merits that were proposed for it. The project was welcomed by the teachers; some of the 'desired' modification observed by the observers was corroborated by the pupils; and it was suggested that a wider implementation is feasible