CONSTRUCTING CORE TEACHING COMPETENCY INDICATORS FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHERS IN CHINA

With the deepening of globalization and the rapid development of science and technology in today’s world, the competition among various countries is increasingly intensified. In order to cope with the increasingly complex situations and problems in life and learning in the 21st century, students need to acquire and master the key competencies needed to future professions and careers during school (OECD, 2005, 2006; Tiana et al., 2011; Yao & Guo, 2018). The construction of teacher core competences is the key step to promote the development of core competences of students, and it is also the key to cultivating outstanding citizens who can adapt to globalization in the future. Many studies have shown that teacher competence has a positive effect on the formation of students’ key competences (AACTE, 2016; Caena, 2014; Distler, 2007; Gordon et al., 2009). For example, Distler (2007) found that teachers’ competences in organizing problembased learning and implementing evidence-based teaching practice have a positive effect on critical thinking and clinical practice competences of nursing students. In report Key Competences in Europe, the Education and Culture Department of the European Commission pointed out that in the practice of competence-oriented curriculum reform, schools that have implemented quite successfully, a useful experience is that they all focus on the development of core teacher competences. In 2014, during the drafting of the Education and Training: 2020 Plan, Francesca, who was responsible for the research on teacher professional development, also realized that in terms of improving student learning and improving school effectiveness, teacher competence is always placed at the core, and excellent teachers should have the ability to cultivate excellent global citizens (Caena, 2014). In the field of science education, we are in an era of striving for all students to achieve scientific literacy (one of the main goals of science education) (Bybee, 1995; NRC, 1996, 2012). In science teaching practice, the competent science teacher is the decisive factor for the success of students’ Abstract. Science teachers play a key role in successfully implementing science education reforms and providing all students with meaningful science learning opportunities. Therefore, what core teaching competencies do science teachers need to have in their practice? This study uses fuzzy Delphi technique and Analytic Hierarchy Process to approach the above problems. Experts from Chinese universities, secondary schools and educational research institutions were invited to participate in two rounds of Delphi process. The research results show that the four domains of core teaching competencies of science teachers and their 21 competencies have high content validity. Additionally, it can be concluded that the weights of core competencies of making learning objectives, raising pedagogical questions, stimulating learning motivation and analyzing course content ranked high, while the weights of core competencies of using information technology and multimedia, evaluating practical work, and presenting research results have received less attention. It is believed that the results of this study can enlighten the education reform of science teachers and promote the professional development of pre-service/ in-service science teachers.