The use of inventories for the description of explicit epistemological beliefs of a science teacher in an ethnographic study. Comparison with implicit beliefs

Abstract

This work is part of a research project based on the "teacher-centered mediational model", which attempts to develop methodologies, procedures and instruments to study explicit and implicit epistemological and didactic beliefs of middle level science teachers (in training and in practice). The objectives were: To describe and characterize (as part of the "ethnographic methodology" and using two inventories) some explicit epistemological beliefs of a science teacher of the middle level taken as a "case" and to compare them with the implicit ones, obtained during the same ethnographic study (using as an interpretative framework, the same substantive theory). The methodology used in the "subject-centered ethnographic research" (epistemological and didactic beliefs) is presented. The explicit epistemological beliefs of the "case teacher" were studied with the "Inventory of Didactic and Epistemological Beliefs (ICDE)", elaborated by the work team and with the "Inventory of Pedagogical and Scientific Beliefs (INPECTP)", developed by Porlán Ariza (1989). The responses to both Inventories were analyzed using the "substantive theory" used to develop the ICDE. Some explicit epistemological beliefs of the teacher were described and characterized. These were compared with implicit beliefs (inferred from other data sources and analyzed with the same theoretical framework).