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can detect. The discussion proceeds by the students stating that there is not anything that vibrates in the eye to detect light. It seems that students have problems in conceptualizing light as waves, because they have learnt that waves are vibrations that propagate and it is not clear to them what the material substance that vibrates is when it comes to light. Other student groups bring up further problematic issues concerning light as a wave, such as what is in the end of a wave, and where the wave starts and ends.
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should be treated more thoroughly, since students show substantial problems with envisioning light as waves and since the wave model is important for the development of a more advanced understanding of quantum physics. Furthermore, we suggest that physics teaching should explicitly present and discuss various interpretations of quantum physics at an early stage.
This could improve students’ understanding of quantum physics and the nature of science as well as stimulate their interest in modern physics and its philosophical aspects.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research is supported by the Research Council of Norway through grants for the project ReleQuant Competence.
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Margaret Chan Kit Yok, Purna Bahdur Subbab, Ling Siew Eng, Pierre Clément, and Lai Kim Leong: Preliminary Results on Bhutanese Teachers Conception of Evolution
Preliminary Results on Bhutanese Teachers Conception of Evolution
Margaret Chan Kit Yok*a, Purna Bahdur Subbabb, Ling Siew Enga, Pierre Clémentc, Lai Kim Leongd
aUniversiti Teknologi MARA, Jalan Meranek, Kota Samarahan, 94300, Malaysia
bSamtse College of Education, Royal University of Bhutan
cLIRDEF, Aix-Marseille University, ÉSPÉ - 32 rue Eugène Cas CS 90279 - 13248 Marseille Cedex 04, France
d Teacher Education Institute of Malaysia, Batu Lintang Campus, Kuching, Sarawak
* Corresponding author e-mail address: drmchan@sarawak.uitm.edu.my
Abstract
The Biohead-Citizen project (Biology, Health and Environmental Education) for better citizenship was initiated in 2004 aimed to understand how Biology, Health and Environmental Education can promote a better citizenship in which the teachers’
conception related to six topics on Human Brain; Human Genetics; Human Origin; Human Reproduction and Sex Education;
Health Education and Ecology and Environmental Education. This research project was extended to Bhutan, a deeply religious country with religion permeating all facets of life under the guiding development philosophy of Gross National Happiness.
This paper shared the findings of the teachers’ conceptions of evolution varying with their religions on Biology, Health and Environmental Education in promoting a better citizenship, including their affective and social dimensions. A total of 36 student teachers from Samtse College of Education and 5 Lower School Teachers in Samtse, who filled out the questionnaire were life sciences teachers. More than half of the teachers who declared their religion were Buddhist, the official Bhutanese religion, while 31.7% of teachers were Hindus. The older teachers (above 25 years) were more conservative as compared to the younger teachers. Based on 15 questions related to evolution, all the teachers were found more oriented toward the evolutionist pole due to the influence of their religious background. However, the perception towards origin of life oriented towards evolutionists was contrasted by perception of human origin with orientation towards creationist particularly among the Hindus. In asking whether the theory of evolution contradicted their belief, there were similar pattern of response for both religions in which 50%
indicated ‘yes’. But 65% and 15% of the Buddhist and Hindu teachers respectively indicated that creationism contradicted their belief.
Keywords: Bhutan, Buddhism, Conception of Evolution; Gross National Happiness, Hinduism, Religion;
INTRODUCTION
Bhutan is a small Himalayan country with projected population of 813,328 by world population review. The country is deeply religious with religion permeating all facets of life. Since the time of the fourth King’s declaration in 1972, Gross National Happiness (GNH) has been the guiding development philosophy. At its most subtle level, GNH expresses a shift in consciousness regarding how Bhutanese strike a balance between material and non-material values, prioritizing the happiness and well-being of humans and all life. The objective of GNH is to achieve a balanced form of development encompassing nine domains of progress: health, time use, education, cultural resilience, living standards, ecological diversity, good governance, community vitality and psychological well-being, each of which makes a vital contribution to happiness. This approach aims to balance modernity with tradition, material with spiritual, and economic with social, all within the broader context of ecological conservation. Bhutan has organized its education system around the principles of GNH which the Ministry of Education’s explicit mission is to “Educate for Gross National Happiness.” 75% of the population is Buddhist, mostly of Vajrayana Buddhism, the state religion; 22% are Hindu, followed by 2%
folk religion and 1% other religions. Hinduism is practiced mainly by the southern Bhutanese which are ethnic Nepalese.
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The historical education system of Bhutan was in monastic form of education where literacy was confined to the monasteries. In 1961, a modern education system in secular form was introduced (Sherab, 2013). Bhutanese schools then followed curricula and textbooks directly from India, which were Anglo-Indian in nature (Namgyel, 2011). Biology learning content is about the rich biodiversity of the country and about the endangered species found in the country and students’ role within biosphere and how sustainability can be affected through their actions and the actions of others (Dema and Macleod, 2015).
The Biohead-Citizen project (Biology, Health and Environmental Education) for better citizenship was initiated in 2004 aimed to understand how Biology, Health and Environmental Education can promote a better citizenship (Carvalho et al., 2008). The teachers’ conception related to six topics on Human Brain; Human Genetics; Human Origin; Human Reproduction and Sex Education; Health Education and Ecology and Environmental Education were analysed. Conceptions were based on emergences from interactions between the three poles:
the scientific knowledge (K), the systems of values (V) and the social practices (P), as proposed by the model KVP (Clément, 2006) in which defined K being referred to the publications coming from the scientific community, while P, the practice of teaching practices associated to personal and professional activities as well as the social and historical context and V associated in a large sense to opinions, beliefs and ideologies. In the analysis of the teachers’ conceptions on Evolution, Clément and Quessada (2008, 2009) concluded that the differences among religions are only dealing with values, whereas the differences among countries were dealing with values and knowledge with a very strong correlation between the values which differentiated the countries and the religions. They also indicated there was an interaction between values and knowledge related to teachers' conceptions on some topics such as the role of chance, natural selection, and intelligent design in the evolution of species. In addition, the independence of some knowledge from the values, differentiating teachers among themselves as well as groups of teachers by countries showed a possible acquisition of knowledge related to evolution independently from religions suggesting that when the knowledge increased, the values also could change to be more evolutionists. The Biohead-Citizen research project was extended to Bhutan aimed at analysing the teachers’ conceptions of evolution varying with their religions on Biology, Health and Environmental Education in promoting a better citizenship, including their affective and social dimensions.
METHODOLOGY
The questionnaire built and validated inside the Biohead-Citizen research project (2004-2008:
Carvalho et al, 2008) containing 153 questions with 15 questions being dedicated to evolution, and 22 questions related to personal information (gender, age, level of instruction, religion, political or religious opinions was used. The collection of the filled questionnaire was totally anonymous. The sampling was the same as in other countries of the Biohead-Citizen project.
Nevertheless, in Bhutan, the collection of data was not yet well balanced for the six sub-sampling interviewed in each other country as it is only conducted in Samtse, one of the 26 districts, but it is already possible to analyse the present total of 36 student teachers from Samtse College of Education who filled out the questionnaire categorized:
18 Bachelor of Education Student Teachers
9 Post Graduate Diploma in Education (PgDE) Student Teachers
8 Master of Education Student Teachers (School Teachers from different Schools in Bhutan).
Five (5) Lower School Teachers in Samtse also took part in filling the questionnaires. All the 41 respondents were life sciences teachers. The data were analyzed using the IBM SPSS Version 24.
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