The Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS) reforms in the South African school system came with an increased emphasis on laboratory practicals for the physical sciences. While reform implementation is known to be fraught with a myriad of challenges, for science teachers such significant changes in the practical components magnified the…

In many countries, including South Africa, the underperformance of Physical Sciences learner's is a great concern. The purpose of this study was to find out how the academic achievement of science learners can be addressed through implementing a parental involvement policy. The policy on parental involvement can only be successful if there is an…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the nature of small group discussion tasks and learners' talk during Physical Science lessons. The study was conducted during Physical Science lessons with three self-selected groups of Grade 11 learners from one school. A total of three lessons were followed. During the…

The COVID-19 pandemic necessitated an abrupt shift to remote teaching, presenting unique challenges for rural Physical Science teachers due to their limited access to technological resources. This qualitative study employed a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of six Physical Science teachers from rural South Africa during…

School science subjects may be informed by curriculum ideologies such as discipline-centered, service-centered, student-centered, or citizen-centered ideologies. The distinct characteristics of each ideology complicate the extent to which science subjects could integrate different curriculum ideologies. Consequently, the present research explored…

Pedagogical content knowledge is considered a valuable knowledge base for all science teachers. Thus, promoting its development in all pre-service teacher programmes including a short 1 year Physical Science postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) course is desirable. This paper focuses on the comparison of topic-specific pedagogical content…

Although there is increased uptake of active learning approaches in especially developed countries, this is still lagging within the African context. The current study therefore focused on the implementation of group learning at Stellenbosch University, with several modifications versus our earlier, pilot study. Students freely formed small groups…

Transformative pedagogy is based on the principle that learning requires concerted effort to critically examine beliefs, values, and assumptions, and places learners at the heart of the learning process. The development of pre-service teachers' lesson planning skills is considered key in raising effective teachers to close the gap between theory…

Framed within Schein's culture model, this study re-centres teacher culture as a key variable in pedagogic settings. Teachers' cultures or basic assumptions in a culturally diverse desegregated school are explored as a crucial dictate in the emergence of the context in which teaching and learning materialises. Through engagement in a focused…

In South Africa, there is a strong recognition of the affordances of information and communications technology (ICT) in science teaching and learning. A key indicator for the effective use of ICT is the technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) of teachers with TPACK-Practical (TPACK-P) being an important iteration related to teacher…

The study reported on here was undertaken to understand the impact of mentoring novice science teachers. The study was conducted within the Gauteng province, because there have been many debates and concerns on the necessity to devise ways of improving the understanding of science in schools in the province. The purpose of this study was to…

This study investigated the effect of in-service training in the use of the ripple tank equipment on science teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) about the topic of waves. Three Grade 10 Physical Sciences teachers participated in this qualitative case study. The Refined Consensus Model informed the conceptual framework of this study,…

It is widely acknowledged that understanding of science is key to becoming global citizens and to embrace technological advancements. Although research suggests that girl's performance in science has improved over the years, there are still concerns about the under-representation of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)…

Scientific inquiry has been advocated as a common curriculum goal in school science education in South Africa, and also throughout the world. In South Africa, the introduction of inquiry-based instruction in a reformed science curriculum has met with serious challenges, such as the under-preparedness of in-service teachers. The purpose of this…

This article reports on the introduction of a simple, portable, low-cost, and hands-on spectral tool for first-year chemistry students to use inside the laboratory and its spontaneous dissemination outside of the laboratory. The Mini Spec is a refinement of the Schwabacher minispectroscope in terms of simplicity and language load on the students.…