Chapter 4 Data Analysis and Results
4.7 Qualitative Analysis of Leaders’ Interview Questions
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Interview Question 5: How do leaders contribute to the success of online science education?
This question aimed to understand how leaders can support and contribute to the success of online science education from the perspective of teachers. One teacher highlighted the importance of providing resources and the needed training. While the other stated “offering professional development opportunities for teachers” and “give the teachers the necessary resources and reduce the amount of work that teachers have to do outside the classroom so that they have enough time to prepare organized lessons that include resources that can be accessed online.” The third teacher mentioned leaders contribute “when they share the successful strategies and encourage the teachers that need support.” The last teacher considered leaders should “provide detailed instructions and anticipate questions” as well as “ensure all instructions are easy to follow.” All the above answers showed that teachers need support from leaders by providing them with the needed resources and training. Moreover, it is evident that science teachers consider their leaders are overloading the teachers with extra tasks that are outside the classrooms which take up their planning time. Science teachers seem to unite on their perception of how the leadership team should contribute to the success of online science education and that is through reducing the work overload and through professional development targeted at online science education.
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the interviewed science leaders show the similarity of challenges faced by those leaders and the science teachers. It is evident that there was difficulty in assessing students’ skills in authentic ways where students performed their assessments online behind the screens. Leaders seemed to stress the importance of assessing students’ progress and understanding to check if the learning process is evident. Moreover, leaders expressed facing technical issues and they highlighted the lack of motivation among students which affected students’ progress and attainment in science.
Interview Question 2: What challenges did your teachers face during online education?
In this question, science leaders shared their perceptions of the challenges their science teachers faced during online education. The first interviewed leader highlighted several thoughts such as
“technical issues, motivating students, keeping track of the progress and assignments, and lack of technical or software knowledge.” According to the second science leader, he/she stated
“distraction and motivation of the students” as a major challenge for his science teachers. The third leader also mentioned students’ motivation in the pandemic, as well as “assessing students’
progress and attainment”. It is evident from the feedback of interviewed science leaders that there was consensus between leaders and their respective science teachers about the challenges that the teachers face during online science education. One major challenge seemed to be assessing students’ progress and attainment and finding the right tools to measure students’
progression and understanding of the science content. Moreover, motivating students through this transition to online education was evident as a big challenge for leaders as well as science educators. Also, it is important to note how leaders did not highlight the overload of this transition on the science teachers which would be a major concern if leaders did not observe that challenge especially since science teachers had stressed on it.
Interview Question 3: What steps did you take to support teachers to overcome any challenges they faced?
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This question aimed to understand how science leaders supported teachers to overcome any challenges they faced. The first interviewed science leader stated he/she supported science teachers by “providing workshops about different platforms so that to engage students to become active not passive to motivate students.” The second science leader mentioned supporting science teachers by “teachers’ professional development related to online learning as a new approach”. While the third interviewed science leader considered “training teachers on different platforms used and new teaching strategies that can be used in online science education” as the support he/she provided for the science teachers. The three interviewed science leaders stated they supported the science teachers in mostly the same way by providing them with the required training to use different platforms and strategies in helping teach science online and keeping students motivated. However, it is evident that the interviewed leaders did support teachers in professional development and training while failing to address the challenge of keeping students engaged which they had mentioned as a challenge in the previous interview question.
Interview Question 4: What were the teaching strategies implemented in your school prior to shifting to online education; and how did those strategies facilitate this transition?
The purpose of this question was to understand the teaching strategies used prior to online education and how those strategies facilitated science online education during Covid-19.
The first interviewed science leader highlighted the following strategies: “integrating technology into the classroom, cooperative learning, and inquiry-based learning strategies.” The same leader believed these “strategies facilitated the transition to online as students had an idea about technology and using breakout rooms was useful in allowing students working cooperatively.” The second science leader mentioned the “implementation of technology in teaching and learning.” The third science leader stated that “simulations and virtual labs were already used in our school that helped a lot during the pandemic” and “students and teachers were skilled in using it.” All the interviewed science leaders stated they had integrated technology in their schools prior to the pandemic which facilitated the online science education
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process, especially since students and teachers were used to working on virtual labs and simulations. However, it is intrinsic to highlight the difference between the perception of science teachers and those of science leaders where teachers considered there was a lack of strategies and a lot of self-taught strategies were implemented upon the transition to online science education.
Interview Question 5: How did you amend the curriculum to maintain the same level of students’ skill development?
The aim of this question was to understand the modification that science leaders did in the curriculum to maintain the same level of students’ skill development. The first interviewed science leader mentioned that “the curriculum was amended in a way that is easy to deliver through online platforms as virtual labs were used, short presentations, more interactive online worksheets and look for free resources.” While the second science leader stated that “it was impossible to do so but we reflected on each unit teaching to be able to modify any concerns.”
The last interviewed science leader admitted that “the curriculum was kept the same and it was hard to eliminate specific standards.” It is evident that science leaders couldn’t amend the curriculum because they believed it was hard to choose what is important and what is not in the science curriculum. One leader stated amendments to teaching strategies and not any amendments to the curriculum itself. It is noticeable that the interviewed science leaders did not elaborate scientifically nor the evidence on the barriers facing amendments to science curriculum and how by keeping the same curriculum they were able to maintain the same level of students’ skill level development during online science education.
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