Normes professionnelles, épistemologie professionnelle, et pratiques d’enseignants de sciences physiques au secondaire camerounais : un point de vue didactique.

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the system of teaching practices in a context of paradigmatic change. Among Cameroonian physical science teachers, the curricular changes have generated a deep debate between prescriptive purposes and the interpretations that teachers make of them. It is in this context that its teachers must build a representation of their work and give meaning to the programs they are required to teach. However, it is difficult to know how this dynamic is played out in daily teaching practice and in a concrete way without a study dwelling on this subject. In this research, our object of study is the system of teaching practices (teaching practice and its components). This study aims at: describing and analyzing the effective practice of teachers, the way in which professional epistemology determines their actions; and consequently, the way in which they prescribe (curriculum, program, and discipline) acts as professional standards. In order to account for the complexity of the system which is the teaching practice, we favored a multi-case study of teachers at different experiential levels. The characterization of the teaching practice of teachers was carried out using an analysis grid defined by Bru (1992) and modified by us; Subsequently, the results of the characterization analysis of the practice were subjected to a second standard grid for analyzing the actions of the teacher according to the different components and prescriptive points, which made it possible to carry out a comparative analysis between the realization of the points of the practice and prescriptive requirements to determine the level of practical/curricular prescription correlation. Finally, the results of characterization of the practice were highlighted with an analysis grid related to the practical epistemology to deduce the different practical or professional epistemologies of the teachers. The results obtained are summarized as follows: the teachers share the same “praxeological culture” (similar praxeological identity), they present a practice/prescription correlation ratio in moderately acceptable adequacy with the prescriptive requirements; they all have the same practical epistemology for learning (practical epistemology for conducting learning activities), but are of different practical epistemology for teaching. The striking interpretation that emerges from different discussions of the results is as follows: the annoyances observed with regard to the different practical epistemologies of the teachers find their origin in the misunderstanding and the shortcomings towards some prescriptive points.