Research Student Profiles
A major priority at The UWI Cave Hill Campus is developing our research capacity. Here is a list of some of our research students.
Catherine Clifford |
| Department: Humanities and Education |
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I am pursuing the PhD of Education (Science) at the Cave Hill Campus. Many years of teaching science at the secondary level and at the Division of Teacher Education at the Community College in St. Lucia as well as information garnered from reading about science education at the global level made me aware of the need for a well grounded foundation in science from the primary school level.
In spite of numerous innovations in science education, the status of science education and achievement in science have not improved significantly neither in the Caribbean region nor in the global community. Much of the research activities have focused on identifying problems in science education and few have actually sought to develop programmes to alleviate the problems. Therefore, my research is an action research which seeks to improve the implementation of the Science and Technology Curriculum in four schools in St. Lucia. This research follows four phases.
Phase one involves a general survey of primary schools in St. Lucia to establish the schools with the lowest levels of implementation as perceived by principals and teachers. The instrument used for data collection in this phase is the Science Curriculum Implementation Questionnaire. Four schools with low levels of implementation will form the cases for a needs assessment (Phase two) to determine the specific needs in terms of teacher knowledge, teacher adequacy, teacher attitude, professional support, resource adequacy, time, and school ethos. Phase three involves the development and implementation of an action plan and intervention programme to alleviate the needs identified by the principals, teachers, parents and students. The programme will be monitored and evaluated in phase four. The findings will be used to inform future cycles of action to improve implementation of the Science and Technology Curriculum.
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