religious beliefs of the science teachers in intermediate stage  in Kuwait and their effect on the science teaching

Al Shammari, Ahmed Shalal; Al Shammari, Goza; Al Fajam, Hassan Mohamed

doi:10.21608/jealex.2016.203113

religious beliefs of the science teachers in intermediate stage in Kuwait and their effect on the science teaching

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Assistant Professor - Department of Curriculum and Teaching Methods - Basic Education College - General Authority for Applied Education and Training - Kuwait State

10.21608/jealex.2016.203113

Abstract

      This study aimed to investigate the religious beliefs of science teachers in intermediate schools in Kuwait, and to what extent these religious beliefs affect the teaching of science in the classroom.
In this study quantitative and qualitative methods are used on a random sample of science teachers (160 questionnaires and 23 semi-structured interviews), in 20 intermediate public schools located in all Kuwait governorates.
      The results show that science teachers do have religious beliefs, which is accepted from previous study, social culture and daily life in this society which is characterized by Islamic culture. Also the results show that the science teachers’ religious beliefs do influence their behaviour in their daily life and that such behaviour is reflected in the science teaching in the classroom; so this confirms that the teachers’ religious beliefs do have an effect on the teaching of science.
Most of the science teachers recommended that science lessons should be related to the principles of the Islamic religion because this will have a positive effect on the students’ understanding. Also most of them agreed that there are some science topics that are inconsistent with Islamic religious principles, such as the theory of evolution and cloning, and they recommended removing these from the curriculum because such topics will conflict with the students’ religious beliefs and will therefore have a negative   effect on their learning of them.
     The study concludes that most of the science teachers do not know how to teach the lessons which they believe to be inconsistent with Islamic principles, because they did not have suitable training in the teacher training college, or any developmental training or courses after they became teachers.
     The study recommends the provision of many training courses to science teachers in order to develop their teaching in the classroom. It also recommends to reform and develop the science curriculum to relate more closely to the students’ social culture and religious beliefs.

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