Session Information
01 SES 13 C, Action Research and Lesson Study Research
Paper Session
Contribution
Lesson study (LS) is a pedagogical approach that characterizes a special form of research in action in the classroom, aimed at improving knowledge in the field of teaching practice (Dudley, 2015). Lesson studies involve teams of teachers collaborating in planning, teaching, observation, analysis of learning and teaching, and documenting their findings (Rock & Wilson, 2005).
Nowadays, in Kazakhstan, large educational reforms are taking place. The main purpose of these reforms is to improve teaching and learning by implementing the best educational practices of the world’s educational system. To expedite this process, since 2008, the Kazakhstan government has established new types of experimental schools, named Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools, to test the best foreign educational practices for the Kazakhstani population. Since then, Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools are successfully implementing Lesson Study and shared their experience with all secondary schools in the country (Wilson & Sharimova, 2019). A recent study by Khokhotva, (2018) shows that LS is gaining momentum in Kazakhstan and getting popular among secondary school teachers.
According to the rising tendency of Lesson Study in Kazakhstan, we considered it necessary to contribute to the development of this field and show teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward the implementation of Lesson Study in their practice, by surveying them with the use of a validated tool for Kazakhstan population (Abdulbakioglu et al, 2022). For this purpose, we put the following research questions:
What are the beliefs and attitudes of teachers toward LS?
Do the teachers’ beliefs and attitudes differ toward LS according to gender?
Do the teachers’ beliefs and attitudes differ toward LS across discipline groups?
Do the teachers’ beliefs and attitudes differ toward LS according to their teaching experiences?
Do the teachers’ beliefs and attitudes differ toward LS according to the number of conducted and participated LS?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of LS for teaching and students’ learning?
Method
Here mixed methods were applied, through an online survey, to analyze the secondary school teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward LS. Overall 76 teachers responded to the survey (24 were males, 52 were females). To analyze the differences between groups, we grouped our sample as follows: we separately investigated the responses of Social Science Teachers (24 teachers) and Science and Math Teachers (52 teachers). According to the work experience, we divided our sample into three groups: the first group of teachers who have 1-5 years of work experience, a second group with 6-15 years of work experience, and a third group of teachers with more than 15 years of work experience. According to the number of conducting LS and participating in LS, we also divided teachers into six sub-groups: in the first two sub-groups teachers who conducted or participated in LS less than three times; in the second two sub-groups teachers who conducted or participated in LS between 4 and 6 times; in the last two sub-groups teachers who conducted or participated in LS more than seven times. In this study, we used an instrument that was originally developed by Abdulbakioglu et. al, (2022) to investigate the teachers’ and students’ perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs about Open Lessons. Open Lesson similar practice to LS, Open Lesson is widely known in Post Soviet Union Countries as a demonstrative lesson. We adopted this survey to LS with keeping the original meaning of its items. The survey includes 25 items with quantitative responses, a set of 5‐point Likert scale scaled questions (1 = “Strongly Agree,” 5 = “Strongly Disagree”), with three dimensions: a) teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about LS and teaching (14 items), b) attitudes and beliefs about LS and students’ learning (6 items), c) and attitudes and beliefs about LS and professional collaboration with colleagues (5 items). At the end of the survey open-ended questions such as: What is your favorite topic in your subject that you conduct the LS on?; What kind of preparations do you do before an LS?; What are the advantages of LS for your teaching and your student’s learning?; What are the disadvantages of LS for your teaching and your student’s learning? - were asked by teachers. Depending on variable size, for the second and third research questions, we used an independent sample t-test, and for the fourth and fifth research questions, we applied the ANOVA test. The rest data were analyzed qualitatively.
Expected Outcomes
Generally, according to descriptive statistics, teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward LS for all dimensions of the survey (Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward teaching LS, Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward students learning during LS, and Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward professional collaboration with colleagues) is positive (Mean value > 2.5). According to our second research question, the results showed that females have more positive attitudes than males regarding professional collaboration during LS. For the third research question, we only found that Science subject teachers have a more positive attitude toward students learning during LS than non- Science subject teachers. As a fourth research question, we searched the difference between teachers’ attitudes and beliefs toward LS according to their work experience. In this case, we did not find any significant differences between groups. It means that all teachers regardless of their work experience have positive attitudes toward LS. According to the fifth research question data analysis showed that teachers who participated in LS more than seven times believe that they teach better at LS compared with those who participated in LS less than three times. For the other groups, we could not find any differences. Analysis of the qualitative part of the research has shown that, generally, teachers have a positive attitude toward the implementation of LS in their practice. Most of them indicated that during LS they use different teaching methodologies and it helps to better represent the content of the subject and positively affects students’ understanding of the topic. Although, some teachers do not fully agree with the opinion of their colleagues and noted some negative sides of the Lesson Study in their qualitative response. In their opinion, preparation for Lesson study is time-consuming and does not reflect every day’s lesson context.
References
Abdulbakioglu, M., Kolushpayeva, A., Balta, N., Japashov, N., & Bae, C. L. (2022). Open Lesson as a Means of Teachers’ Learning. Education Sciences, 12(10), 692. Dudley, P. (2015). Lesson study. Professional learning for our time. Khokhotva, O. (2018). Lesson Study in Kazakhstan: case study of benefits and barriers for teachers. International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, 7(4), 250-262. NIS, 2023. Retrieved from web site: https://cep.nis.edu.kz/o-programme/?lang=en Rock, T. C., & Wilson, C. (2005). Improving teaching through lesson study. Teacher education quarterly, 32(1), 77-92. Wilson, E., & Sharimova, A. (2019). Conceptualizing the implementation of Lesson Study in Kazakhstan within a social theory framework. International journal for lesson and learning studies.
Search the ECER Programme
- Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
- Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
- Search for authors and in the respective field.
- For planning your conference attendance you may want to use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference
- If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.