Elementary Science Teachers Perceptions of Educational Reform in Relation to Science Teaching in Jordan
This study aims at evaluating elementary science teachers' perceptions of the educational reform movement in Jordan with regard to their teaching practices. Data were collected from 87 elementary science teachers by means of an open-ended questionnaire and later interviews with 4 teachers. Analysis of the responses indicated that teachers see reform as a necessity, but they lack a common understanding of the purpose of the reform in relation to their science teaching practices. (Keywords: Educational Reform, Elementary Science Teachers, Jordan, Teachers' Perceptions).
Within the last two decades, the cognitive science of religion has gained momentum, and this has led to a call for dedicated experimental studies addressing this level of explanation. However, what does such an experimental turn mean for the study of religion more generally? How does it affect what we study and the methods we use to study it? Does it alter with whom we cooperate, where we publish and what scholarly discussions we take part in? In this article, we discuss how the experimental study of religious phenomena changes the theoretical subject matter and how it involves a new relation between theoretical modeling, methodological reduction and generalization. We argue that, similar to all new approaches, an experimental methodology is likely to alter the study of religion in the short run, but in the longer perspective experimental approaches are likely to take their place beside other approaches that constitute the broader field of the academic study of religion.