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SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF PRACTICAL WORK IN BIOLOGY IN THE OSHANA EDUCATION REGION
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The aim of this study was to investigate the Biology teachers’ perceptions of the importance of practical work in selected secondary schools in the Oshana Education Region (OER). The study also sought to find out whether the selected secondary schools in the OER had all the necessary resources needed to conduct meaningful practical lessons in Biology. This study sought to answer the following research questions:
1. What are the Secondary School teachers’ perceptions of the importance of practical work in Biology in Oshana Education Region?
2. Do Secondary Schools in Oshana education region have all the necessary resources for conducting practical lessons in Biology?
This study was situated in both the qualitative and quantitative research paradigms. The population of this study consisted of all Biology teachers at Grade 11 and 12 levels in OER. Eight Secondary Schools in the OER were randomly selected to take part in this study. A sample comprising of 23 Biology teachers was then chosen purposively from the 8 Secondary Schools. A questionnaire and an observation schedule were used to collect the data for this study. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze quantitative data and included frequency tables, graphs and pie charts. Qualitative data were categorised into themes that emerged from the data. The findings showed that the 69.9% of the Biology teachers did not have a laboratory specifically for conducting Biology practicals and carried out their practicals in a common laboratory, used for both Physical Science and Biology or in their classrooms. Two( two out of nine teachers) of the observed teachers did not bother to carry out practical work and taught Biology as a completely theoretical subject, which disadvantaged learners on Paper 3, alternative to course work paper. The findings also showed that the 66.6 % of the teachers were not carrying out practicals in Biology. They claimed to be doing so, but in actual sense there were not much practical work taking place in those schools as four out six of the observed teachers were doing demonstrations only. The findings also showed that the materials necessary for carrying out practical work were not available in the Biology classrooms or laboratories. This was evident from the nonavailability of practical manuals for both teachers and learners resulting in the use of teacher made hand-outs. This situation needs to be seriously addressed if practical work is to become popular among the learners and the teachers in the OER in Namibia.The Ministry of Education through Biology Advisory Teachers should seriously address the problems of both lack of laboratory space for the conduct of Biology practicals and the laboratory resources to ensure the conduct of practicals in schools in the OER. Biology Teachers should be encouraged to borrow materials necessary for conducting practicals from neighbouring schools in cases where their schools do not have the necessary resources for conducting practicals in Biology.
Key words: Practical work, Laboratories, Teachers perceptions, Resources