Training and Seminar Needs of Junior High School Science Teachers: Basis in the Formulation of Training Design

Abstract

The study focused on identifying the training and seminar needs of junior high school science teachers while also developing a training design based on these findings. Specifically, the respondents consisted of 48 junior high school science teachers from the Department of Education, School Division of Cabanatuan City, and a quantitative research method was employed. In terms of demographics, the respondents' profiles show that the largest age group is 26–31 years old (35.41%), the majority are female (66.67%), and most are in the early stages of their teaching careers, with 41.67% having 6–10 years of experience and 31.25% having 1–5 years; taken together, this indicates that the study primarily reflects the views of newer educators. With regard to training needs, the results revealed that respondents prioritize training and seminars in research and investigatory projects as their top need, while the second most desired area is deepening knowledge of the specific science subjects they teach or work with. In addition, innovative teaching strategies rank third, reflecting a desire to learn new methods to engage students and improve the teaching process, whereas effective assessment methods are the least prioritized, suggesting that respondents feel more confident in their existing assessment skills rather than lacking interest in improving these practices. Furthermore, statistical analysis showed that there is no significant relationship between the teachers' profiles and their ranked topics for training and seminars, as indicated by p-values greater than 0.05, which means that demographic and professional characteristics such as age, gender, and years of teaching experience do not statistically influence their training preferences; consequently, the selection of training topics is independent of these profiles.