20 research outputs found
Teachers' tacit knowledge and understanding of children's moral learning : a comparative study of teachers in three schools with different perspectives
The study focuses on 9 teachers teaching pupils aged between 12 and 18
years of age at the turn of the twenty first century in three schools; a
Technology College for boys, a Rudolf Steiner-Waldorf School, and an
Islamic School for girls.
Starting from the premise that teachers may express different views to
what they do in practice, qualitative methods of close examination
(through interviews and observations) were used to explore the influence
of ethos of the different schools on the teachers' expressed knowledge
and behaviour, and sought to identify relationships between the models
of learning and the models of moral learning teachers expressed in
interviews, and implied in their interactions with children. The
methodology highlights the qualitative perspective of 'the researcher as
an instrument of the research', and 'gaining closeness' to the subjects
and the data; and demonstrates how closeness and triangulation ensures
the trustworthiness of qualitative research of this nature. The analysis
is grounded in the research through themes arising from the data; and
three fields of knowledge (e.g. theory and research on learning
processes, philosophical perspectives of morality, and theory and
research of moral development) inform the models of teachers'
understanding identified from the implicit values or philosophical
perspectives that they expressed verbally or implied by their behaviour.
In general teachers expressed more eclectic views of learning processes
and moral learning than they appeared to use in practice. Furthermore,
some teachers may have been influenced towards mainly behaviourist
perspectives by the ethos of their schools, and their perceptions of
respect for their roles. However, unique characteristics and personal
tacit knowledge of how children learn and learn morally dominated
teachers' actions in the way that they imparted knowledge and guided
children morally.
Finally, the thesis acknowledges the personal journey of the researcher
moving from positivist values and analytical methods involving quantifying
qualitative data, to postmodern, constructivist and feminist values that
emphasise the relationship between knowledge and context; and the
validity of subjectivity and 'lived experience' as exploratory tools in
research