| dc.description.abstract | This thesis presents a study of teachers' perspectives on inquiry-oriented approaches and how they conceptualize them. Five teachers from an international school were interviewed. They were asked to describe how they interpret inquiry-based teaching, and to give examples of their own teaching practices in line with inquiry-oriented teaching. Additionally, the teachers were asked for the constraints they face in implementing an inquiry lesson. The results from the inductive analysis show that teachers considered student autonomy as most prominent in their perception of inquiry-based approaches to science teaching. Nevertheless, their examples revealed that they consider content knowledge of curriculum, and how this connects to the real world as equally important as the student autonomy. Implementation of inquiry-based learning in classrooms presents a number of significant challenges. However, case and cross case comparisons, revealed seven main constraints that impacted their enactment of inquiry-based instruction namely: curriculum, time management, students' prior knowledge, students' motivation, physical size of the classroom and the limited resources, good search engine and designing authentic assessment. This study also unveils the teacher s personal suggestions that may support them in inquiry-based teaching approaches, collaborative planning, and professional development course and action research. | |
