Teachers’ perceptions about the pupils’ role in the school community

Author(s):

Kirsi Pyhältö Elsi Ahonen
Janne Pietarinen Tiina Soini

Conference:

ECER 2009

Network:

27. Didactics - Learning and Teaching

Format:

Paper

Session Information

27 SES 06 C, Professional Knowledge, Teachers' Perceptions and Beliefs

Paper Session

Time:

2009-09-29

10:30-12:00

Room:

NIG, HS 2H

Chair:

Meinert Arnd Meyer

Contribution

Comprehensive school teachers around the Europe, Finland included, are currently faced with a diversity of multidimensional educational reforms. The most basic and likely most challenging reform consists of a shift from viewing teaching-learning process primarily as a transmission of knowledge to forms of teaching focused on active and collaborative knowledge construction (Vandenberghe & Huberman, 2000; Niemi, 2002; Syrjäläinen, 2002). Accordingly, teachers are nowadays expected to facilitate pupils’ active learning agency, inquiry based learning and collaborative knowledge building in their teaching and in school practices (Brett, 2002; Engeström, 1999; Hakkarainen, Palonen, Paavola, & Lehtinen, 2004; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1991; Smith, 2006). Yet, not much is known about how teachers’ perceive pupils’ role in school community. This study is a part of a larger national research project: “Learning and development in comprehensive school” (2004 - 2009), which focuses on undivided basic education in Finland. The project aims to identify and understand preconditions for successful school reforms. Altogether 87 municipalities and 237 schools around Finland participated in the first phase of the research project (2005-2007). The project was carried out using a systemic design research approach (Brown, 1992; Collins, Joseph & Bielaczyc, 2004; De Corte, 2000; Salomon, 1996).The part of the larger study reported here focuses on exploring comprehensive school teachers’ perceptions about pupils’ role in their school. Altogether, a selected group (Female: 42, Male: 26, Age: Mean = 44.6) of 68 comprehensive school teachers, including both primary and secondary school teachers, were interviewed. The interview embodied questions on four themes: teaching profession, school community, school development, and interactions with pupils.

Method

The interviews were content analysed using an abductive strategy. In the first phase of the content analysis, all the text segments in which teachers referred to pupil’s role were coded into the same hermeneutic category. After this category was classified into the four exclusive main categories: a) active subject in class activities, b) active subject in school activities c) passive object in class activities and d) passive object in school activities. Categories resulting from the content analysis were validated by the research group at the end of each analysis phase (Miles & Huberman, 1994; Yin, 1994). uch is known about how teachers’ perceive pupils’ role in school community

Expected Outcomes

Results suggested that the teachers’ perceptions about the pupils role in the school community varied widely, ranging from perceiving a pupil as an active agent of the community to merely object of teacher’s effort. In their answers teachers’ emphasise importance of preparing pupils to become skilful and active members of society. However, teachers’ described pupils’ role (54%) in their classes and school often to be quite traditional and passive. Pupils’ role in teaching-learning process as well as other everyday school practices was considered to be active in minority (46%) of descriptions. Pupils’ active role was emphasised most often when teachers referred to changes in school routines or special events such as participating in the school play. To sum up, results suggested that though teachers recognized importance of facilitating pupils’ active role in the society they still considered often to be quite passive and traditional in terms school practices.

References

Brown, A. (1992). Design Experiments: theoretical and methodological challenges in creating complex interventions in classroom setting. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2 (2) 141–178. Brett, C. (2002). Developing epistemic agency as preserve elementary mathematics teachers supported through online community. In paper presented at the American Educational Research Association. Collins, A., Joseph, D., & Bielaczyc, K. (2004). Design Research: theoretical and Methodological Issues. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 13 (1), 15–42. De Corte, E. (2000). High-powered learning communities: a European perspective. Keynote address presented to the first Conference of the Economic and Social Research Council’s Research Programme on Teaching and Learning. Engeström, Y. (1999). Innovative learning in work teams: analysing cycles of knowledge creation in practice, in Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen & R-L. Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory. (pp. 377 – 406). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hakkarainen, K., Palonen, T., Paavola, S., & Lehtinen, E. (2004). Communities of networked expertise. Professional and educational perspectives. Oxford: Elsevier. Miles, M.B., & Huberman, A.M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis. An expanded sourcebook. 2. edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Niemi, H. (2002). Active learning – A cultural change needed in teacher education and schools. Teaching and Teacher Education, 18(7), 763–780. Salomon, G. (1996). Unorthodox thoughts on the nature and mission of contemporary educational psychology. Educational Psychology Review, 8 (4), 397–417. Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1991). Higher levels of agency for children in knowledge building: a challenge for the design of knowledge media. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 1(1), 37–68. Smith, R. (2006). Epistemological agency in the workplace. Journal of Workplace Learning, 18 (3), 157–170. Syrjäläinen., E. (2002). [Couldn’t teachers just teach? The paradox of school development and teachers’ burnout.] Eikö opettaja saisi jo opettaa? : Koulun kehittämisen paradoksi ja opettajan työuupumus. Tampere: University of Tampere Vandenberghe, R. & Huberman, A.M.(Eds.). (1999). Understanding and preventing teacher burnout: A sourcebook of international research and practice. New York: Cambridge University Press. Yin, R.K. (1994). Case study research. Design and methods. 2. edition. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Author Information

Kirsi Pyhältö

Helsinki University

Centre for Research and Development of Higher Education

Helsinki

Elsi Ahonen

Helsinki University, Finland

Janne Pietarinen

University of Joensuu

Faculty of Education

Joensuu

Tiina Soini

Tampere University, Finland

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