When Curriculum Reform Outpaces Teacher Learning: Professional Development and Inquiry‐Based Science Teaching in Ghana's Lower‐Primary Schools

ABSTRACT

Inquiry‐based science teaching is increasingly promoted within competency‐based curriculum reforms as a means of developing learners' critical thinking, problem‐solving, and scientific reasoning skills. However, the success of such reforms depends largely on teachers' access to professional learning that supports subject‐specific instructional expertise. Despite growing interest in teacher professional development, limited research has examined how lower‐primary generalist teachers experience science‐focused professional learning within curriculum reform contexts, particularly in low‐resource settings. This study explored teachers' experiences of science‐focused professional development under Ghana's Standards‐Based Science Curriculum (SBSC), its influence on inquiry‐based science teaching, and the forms of professional learning teachers perceive as most effective for supporting curriculum implementation. Guided by an interpretivist paradigm, the study employed a qualitative research design involving semi‐structured interviews with twelve purposively selected lower‐primary teachers from public schools in the Abuakwa North Municipality of Ghana. Data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Three interrelated themes emerged. First, teachers experienced professional development as largely generic and insufficiently aligned with the specialised demands of inquiry‐based science teaching. Second, the findings revealed a mismatch between curriculum expectations and teacher learning opportunities, highlighting the challenges lower‐primary generalist teachers face in translating inquiry‐oriented reform goals into classroom practice. Third, participants identified practice‐based and sustained professional learning, including mentoring, coaching, demonstration lessons, and science‐focused Professional Learning Communities, as more effective than one‐off workshop approaches. The study contributes new insight into the implementation of curriculum reform by revealing how a mismatch between curriculum expectations and teachers' learning opportunities constrains inquiry‐based science teaching among lower‐primary generalist teachers, a group that remains underrepresented in professional development research. It further advances scholarship on professional development and curriculum reform by demonstrating that the effectiveness of professional learning depends less on its availability than on its alignment with the pedagogical and disciplinary demands of curriculum implementation. Beyond Ghana, the findings contribute to global debates on teacher learning and educational change by suggesting that competency‐based and inquiry‐oriented reforms in low‐ and middle‐income countries are unlikely to achieve their intended outcomes without sustained investment in contextually relevant, practice‐based professional learning systems.