Chapter 8: Exploring Elementary Teachers’ Beliefs and Perceptions About Science Inquiry in Private U.S. Islamic Schools

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), as outlined by a A Framework for K–12 Science Education: Practices, Crosscutting Concepts, and Core Ideas (National Research Council [NRC], 2012), place an unprecedented focus in the United States on the practices involved in doing scientific and engineering work, including those central to science inquiry. In Europe, educational experts have also identified the need for renewed pedagogy in order to overcome the insufficiencies in science and mathematics teaching and to increase the standards of science and mathematics literacy, thereby adopting inquiry-based learning as the educational practice of choice (Engeln et al., 2013).

Despite efforts to clarify what science teaching and learning should entail in order to achieve scientific literacy, researchers contend that most teachers are either not practicing reforms-based science instruction or reluctant to do so (Yoon et al., 2012). One avenue for understanding how science instruction is actually implemented in the classroom is investigating teachers’ beliefs (Anderson, 2015; Choi & Ramsey, 2009; Keys & Bryan, 2001; Tosa, 2011).