Abstract:

This ongoing study investigates whether different positions exists between teachers and school management in their view upon teaching. The project is part of a larger mixed methods based Danish follow up research project, investigating the implementation of learning goal oriented teaching, an element in the Danish school reform implemented from 2014 an onwards. Using a Q-methodological approach (Watts & Stenner, 2012), the study investigates which different positions that could be found between teachers and school management in their views upon teaching, and how the positions relates to teachers perception of further education activities related to the educational reform. The expectation is to find differences between the views of the two groups as the implementation of learning goal oriented teaching have met some resistance from parts of the teaching staff in the Danish public schools. The study will present the different positions that can be found between the participants, and analyze these positions in relation to the Q-interviews conducted with the participants.

Based on the retrieved positions among teachers and school management on the view upon teaching, the study will further interpret the remaining data material from the mixed methods study. With point of departure in Helmkes (2009) framework for analyzing instructional quality, we interviewed teachers in the study about their teaching practices centered on preparation, instruction and evaluation practices in their teaching. Within this framework, the study will present differences and similarities between the different positions found on teachers choice of teaching methods, work with differentiated teaching, their didactic considerations, and how they view and work with learning goal oriented teaching. Further, the study will investigate whether the different positions have influenced how the teachers’ have experienced and learned from participation in further education activities undertaken as part of the implementation of the school reform.

The study will conclude on how the different positions in the teachers view upon teaching seems to affect how they prepare, carry out and evaluate their daily teaching practices. Further, the study will conclude on how further education practices seems to influence how teachers take ownership over elements with direct implications for teaching practices when implementing a reform of the school system in relation to how the reform elements seem to match the different positions that the teachers holds.

Methods section The main study, of which this study is a part, is a mixed method follow up research project following the implementation of parts of the Danish School reform from 2014. We sampled ten schools to participate in the study based on a matrix including school size, geography, and how the school performed using average GPA controlled for student SES to ensure representation of different school types. Data collection took place in two rounds in 2016 an 2018, with visits at all participating schools in with two years apart. In the first round, we selected one fourth year Danish class and one third year mathematics class at each participating school. We conducted structured interviews with the teacher in each class and a focus group interview with four to six students from the class. We observed one lesson in the subject (45 to 90 minutes) and video recorded it for analysis of the teachers teaching practice. Based on the interviews with the teachers in the first round of data collection, we developed a Q-set consisting of 38 statements about teaching following the guidelines from Watts and Stenner (2012). In the second round, we visited the same 20 classes again, conducted interviews with the teacher in the class, observed and video-recorded one lesson, and conducted a focus group interview with four to six students. In continuation hereof, we conducted Q-interviews with the participating teachers, the headmaster of the school and another member of the school management, resulting in 38 complete Q-sorts. Further, national test data in the subject and national measures for student well-being were gathered from the Statistics office in the Ministry of Education making it possible to compare participating classes with the rest of the year group across Denmark. Q-sorts will be analyzed using the qfactor package for Stata 15.1 (Akhtar-Danesh, 2018). Interviews and video-recordings are coded in Nvivo in relation to a coding scheme developed on the basis of the framework for analysis of teaching proposed by Helmke (2009). We coded video observations in relation to analyze how the teachers carry out teaching and make use of presentation of and evaluation in relation to learning goals drawn from the national curriculum.

We expect the study to provide knowledge on which views on teaching that exist between teachers and school management in the Danish public school after the Danish reform of the public school implemented in 2014. Further, we expect the study to shed light on whether these views differ between teachers and school management, and whether the different positions that can be extracted vary within or between schools. Further, we expect to get insights into how different positions in the view upon teaching influences how teachers prepare, conduct and evaluate their teaching, and how different these practices are among teachers holding different views. Lastly, we expect to get insights into how well teacher within the different positions accept a reform and how different kinds of further education activities affect this.

Akhtar-Danesh, N. (2018). qfactor: A command for Q-methodology analysis. Stata Journal, 18(2), 432-446. Helmke, A. (2009). Unterrichtsqualität und Lehrerprofessionalität: Diagnose, Evaluation und Verbesserung des Unterrichts [Instructional quality and teacher professionality: Diagnosis, evaluation, and enhancement of instruction]. Seelze-Velber, Germany: Klett/Kallmeyer. Watts, S., & Stenner, P. (2012). Doing Q methodological research: Theory, method and interpretation. Los Angeles: Sage.