High school physics teachers' pedagogical discontentment: The effect of curriculum improvement and professional development programs

Pedagogical discontentment refers to the feeling of dissatisfaction or frustration that teachers experience with the current state of their teaching. The purpose of this study is to explore high school physics teachers' pedagogical discontentment within the Kazakhstani context. A survey was administered to 126 physics teachers from urban and suburban areas. This quantitative research using Bayesian factor analysis was carried out to analyze the data. The results indicated that teachers are slightly discontented about their teaching and there were no relationships between gender and discontentment, qualification, and discontentment, as well as location and type of the school and discontentment. The results of our study indicate that the professional development programs for physics teachers should prioritize enhancing their abilities to teach using an inquiry-based approach. Furthermore, based on our findings, it can be inferred that the recent educational reforms aimed at improving physics education in secondary schools in Kazakhstan have been effective.