Building on teachers’ beliefs to support inquiry pedagogies. Looking for synergies between two European projects

Educational research has pointed out the impact that teacher attitudes and beliefs have on innovation and changes in curriculum. On the other hand it has also been reported that any professional development course should be built upon teacher views and practices to be successful. Thus, understanding teachers’ beliefs about professional development courses related to IBL approaches can inform us how teachers are likely to adopt and implement this methodology. Taking into account this framework we aim to analyse how Spanish teachers of Mathematics and Science education perceive some features of IBL before they will be engaged in professional development courses as learners and multipliers. Through this study we provide a rich picture of teachers’ views about usefulness of PD courses, difficulties and hindering factors for IBL, attitudes towards IBL implementation, etc. This paper reports some early results, which will be analysed and discussed from our National perspective. Data were collected using a Spanish version of a questionnaire, designed in English within the project, which has also been use in a cross-international survey. Based on those findings, some implications for teacher development using IBL will also be discussed. (Author