Australian secondary science teachers’ perceptions about their classroom practices and student engagement: an analysis based on Science Capital Teaching Approach

This paper analyses Australian secondary science teachers’ perceptions of their pedagogy and students’ classroom engagement based on the Science Capital Teaching Approach (SCTA). Previous research studies related to the idea of teaching to enhance the science capital of secondary students mainly employed qualitative methods to collect data from teachers. This often takes more time and resources to figure out teachers’ competency in implementing SCTA-related practices. This study gathered data through an online survey. The responses from the online survey were used to develop the ‘Teachers’ Self-reporting Science Capital Questionnaire’ (TSSCQ) comprising 11 scale variables with alpha values closer to seven or more. The TSSCQ supports secondary science teachers in self-assessing their agreement to the extent to which they incorporate SCTA-related practices into their science lessons. The TSSCQ along with a scoring guide assist the teachers to identify areas that they need to improve. A strong and statistically significant correlation has been found between the teaching practices that value science and scientists and the teaching practices that highlight the utility of science. Moreover, teachers did not strongly agree that they incorporate the teaching practices based on family cultural capital. The implications of these findings have been also discussed.