Science Teachers’ Pedagogical Discontentment: Its Sources and Potential for Change

This research explored science teachers’ pedagogical discontentment and described its role in teachers’ consideration of new teaching practices. Pedagogical discontentment is an expression of the degree to which one is discontented because one’s teaching practices do not achieve one’s teaching goals. Through a series of structured interviews conducted with 18 practicing science teachers of various grade levels, content areas, routes of preparation, and amount of experience, areas of commonality in the teachers’ pedagogical discontentment were identified. The common areas of pedagogical discontentment include the ability to teach all students science, science content knowledge, balancing depth versus breath of instruction, implementing inquiry instruction, and assessing science learning. We draw implications for using this construct to craft more effective professional development.