How do teachers reason about their practice?

These short extracts from published research papers are provided to support class discussion.

Gholami, K., & Husu, J. (2010). How do teachers reason about their practice? Representing the epistemic nature of teachers' practical knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(8), 1520-1529. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2010.06.001

“The present study focused on the epistemology of teachers’ practical knowledge by addressing the following research question: how do teachers attempt to reason about their practices and their practical knowledge?”

"We focused on two distinct forms of teachers’ practical knowledge: teachers’ overarching beliefs and teachers’ knowledge-in-use…. overarching beliefs were considered to be the most inclusive beliefs and values of teachers. … Kennedy (2004) refers to such inclusive beliefs as “standing beliefs,” which teachers may have developed over a lifetime. …it serves as the basis for judgments about classroom objectives, appropriate instructional strategies, and students’ assignments, textbooks, and curricular materials, and the evaluation of students’ learning” (p.676).

…knowledge-in-use referred to knowledge that teachers use at the actual time of teaching; thus, they could demonstrate by doing (i.e., by teaching).” pp.1521-1522

"We used interviews and observations to collect data. The main interview strategy was to ask direct and indirect “why-type questions” for finding out why our participant teachers engaged in or believed in some particular pedagogical action. Depending on the forms of data mentioned above, two types of interview were used.

We used the semi-structured interview for collecting data related to the reasoning behind both overarching beliefs and the routines of our participants. The content and questions for these interviews were prepared before the interview sessions. …

The stimulated recall interview (Calderhead, 1996) was the other type of interview used for gathering data related to the teachers’ reasoning underlying their practical knowledge-in-use. The general procedure in this interview was to observe and audiotape the teachers’ lessons. One hour after the lessons, we questioned them to discover the reasons behind the significant pieces of pedagogical actions they had undertaken."

Gholami & Husu, 2010: 1522

"Categorization of data

At this stage, we turned to the theoretical arguments of noted educational philosophers and researchers …and considered three inclusive types of “reasoning” for guiding the data analysis: “moral ethos,” “contextual reasoning,” and “effectiveness of action.”

We began an intensive reading of the data in order to know how and to what degree the three categories could describe the material. This kind of data analysis is called “abductive” in that a list of concepts and meanings was provided to develop categories. In this way, in light of the concepts mentioned, we could develop a new system of categories and subcategories.”

Gholami & Husu, 2010: 1522

(Brief extracts such as these can only give you a flavour of a study. You can use the citations to access the full papers to explore the extracts here in the contexts of the full studies.)

Index of topics