Promoting Teachers’ Understanding of Physics Concepts: A Professional Development for Science Teachers in Sa Kaeo Province of Thailand

Abstract

Promoting Teachers’ Understanding of Physics Concepts: A Professional Development for Science Teachers in Sa Kaeo Province of Thailand

Sa Kaeo province is one of the border provinces located in the eastern part of Thailand. With respect to its location, the researchers have conducted an informal meeting with education support personnel and found that Sa Kaeo province has a high migration rate of science teachers. This teacher’s turnover problem has directly affected to the continuity of teaching in all concepts of science especially in physics. Certain responses from the meeting revealed that physics concepts are quite difficult and abstract. Moreover, the shortage of Physics teachers is a priority to be considered in this area. Due to the teacher shortage problem, this problem has obviously involved with teachers who do not earn the degree directly in physics, however, they have to teach physics concept in primary and secondary school levels. This group of teachers required to gain more knowledge in physics. Therefore, a professional development for promoting teachers’ understanding of physics concepts has occurred in the form of a two-day workshop and conducted for 44 science teachers in Sa Kaeo province, Thailand. The physics content used in this project is consistent with learning indicators from the Basic Education Core Curriculum B.E.2551 (A.D.2008) of Thailand. Lecturing and physics learning activities related to everyday life situations were applied to the workshop specifically focusing on main concepts. The research instruments are physics concepts understanding test and satisfaction toward the workshop questionnaire. The quantitative data were analyzed using basic statistics and t-test for dependent samples. The results found that, after the workshop, the participants significantly gained higher scores in understanding of physics concepts (p < .05) with the mean score 11.20 out of total score 19. Participants were highly satisfied with the workshop in all aspects. Besides, according to teachers’ responses, there are many concepts in physics that teachers still have misconceptions and need to continuously learn in the future.