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No time to think: Policy, pedagogy and professional learning

Simon N. Leonard and Philip Roberts

Faculty of Education, Science, Technology and Mathematics, University of Canberra,

Canberra, Australia

Abstract: In this study we seek to illuminate the effects of the global policy convergence in education through a close study of its enactment within an Australian Teacher Education course. Building on an examination of the changing priorities of a cohort of pre-service teachers over a short space of time, we argue that the enactment of New Public Management approaches to the governance of teaching in Australia is having adverse effects on the professional learning of new teachers, defeating the policy goals. Previous studies have investigated the affective impact of current global policy formations on teachers. Building on that work, this study considers the impacts that the teacher policy emphasis on ‘performance’ has had on professional learning processes, which are understood with reference to Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory. The study is undertaken using an interpretative phenomenographic approach and informed by the related methods of discursive psychology.

Keywords

New Public Management; Teacher Professional Learning; Experiential Learning;

Phenomenography; Discursive Psychology

Introduction

This study explores the effects of global policy convergence in education on the

(pre)professional learning of a cohort of pre-service teachers, examining changes in

the interpretations and translations made by that cohort over a short space of time as

their context changed. In particular it examines the effects of the use of the logics of

New Public Management (hence sometimes NPM) to create a performative

environment through the adoption of national standards for teacher accreditation and

registration. A key finding of the study is that pressure to ‘perform’ leaves the

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participants with inadequate time to think, effectively short circuiting well understood

adult learning cycles which require time to assimilate learning from educational and

training experiences such as pre-service professional placements. As a result, this

study contends that the current policy formulations are detracting from rather than

supporting the policy goal of improved teacher quality.

In providing an account of the apparent effects of global policy directions at the level

of a single cohort in a single course of an Australian university, the study here differs

from much of the more highly cited scholarship in this area. Much of this widely read

work is presented in the form of essay, drawing simultaneously on diverse sources of

empirical evidence (see for example Apple, 2009; Connell, 2013; Lingard & Rizvi,

2010; Sahlberg, 2011). Argument at this grand scale is vital to understanding change

in education. However the dominance of this work has led scholars such as Takayama

(2013) to suggest that most studies of policy effects have been theoretically driven or

deductive accounts, often at a macro-sociological level. Similarly is has led others,

such as Rowlands and Rawolle (2013), to point critically to the growing tendency

within education scholarship to use the term ‘neoliberal’ as a catch-all phrase for

something negative but without offering ‘meaningful explanations that help to

illuminate specific changes’ (2013, p. 260).

The present paper is offered noting Braun, Maguire and Ball’s (2010) reminder that

policy is not simply ‘implemented’ but enacted through the interpretations and

translations made by diverse policy actors in schools and other institutions; and that

the analysis of the effects of policy at an institutional level is an important part of a

comprehensive policy scholarship. It is part of a growing body of research being

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carried out at the level where specific changes can be examined and where inductive

analysis is possible. This body of research includes investigations of the way

changing governance modes have led to changing teacher (professional) identity with

implications for agency and vulnerability of teachers (Lasky, 2005; Troman, 2008);

commitment through a career (Day & Qing, 2007; Troman, 2008); and tendencies to

adopt strategies of resistance to policy due to personal discourses of teaching that

contain broader aims than the current policy instruments suggest (Mausethagen, 2013;

Moore, Edwards, Halpin, & George, 2002).

Care must be taken with findings of resistance as many senior critical and policy

scholars are themselves strong advocates of resistance to neoliberal policy

implementation (see for example Ball & Olmedo, 2013; Berliner, 2009; Connell,

2013; Groundwater-Smith & Mockler, 2009). This creates a real risk of researcher

bias, particularly in deductive studies that cannot show the specific mechanisms of

change. This study joins with research that has emerged in recent years suggesting a

more nuanced response from teachers. This literature includes, for example, studies

suggesting that younger teachers differ from older teachers in the way they deal with

external accountability (Barrett, 2009) and in the way they experience teacher

professionalism (Stone-Johnson, 2014). Wilkins (2011) has referred to this as the

emergence of a ‘post-performative’ generation pointing to the fact that younger

teachers in many countries have now grown up in a performative school system. In

our own work (Leonard & Roberts, 2014) we have made similar findings, using

McAdams’ (2001) theories in personality psychology to explain how the formative

experiences of late adolescence have a continuing effect in adult identity formation.

Hardy (2014) provides a different example of research suggesting greater complexity

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in his findings that teachers in the Australian state of Queensland were not resisting

the neo-liberal instrument of census literacy and numeracy testing, but rather co-

opting it to actively promote their own agenda including improvements in their

professional learning.

The modest contribution of this study to the extant literature is to move the research

focus from matters of identity to matters of learning. In particular it asks what are the

effects of the logics of New Public Management as enacted through the

standardisation of teacher professionalism and (pre)professional education on the

expansive human activity of learning? In asking this question, we describe learning as

an expansive activity to indicate that the objectives of pre-professional education are

not stable or well defined, and as a reminder that professionals must be educated in

ways that prepare them for an unknown future (Engeström, 2006).

There are many models that could be chosen in pursuing a focus on learning. In this

study we draw upon Kolb’s (1984) Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) which

suggests that adult learning that is structured around experiences requires a cycle of

observing and feeling, followed by thinking and abstraction, before moving to new

action, and then new experience. The argument that this cycle is being short-circuited

is based on a phenomenographic analysis of the meaning a cohort of teacher

education students were making of their learning experiences at different times

interpreted in light of understandings drawn from discursive psychology (Potter,

2004). Before outlining the method of this analysis and the findings, and to provide

context, the paper will begin with a discussion of the increasing application of the

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strategies of New Public Management through standardisation to ‘reform’ teacher

education.

New Public Management and Australian Teacher Education

The methodology of this study is inductive or ‘grounded’. It began as a reflexive

consideration of the nature of the learning that had occurred in a Teacher Education

course as part of a design-based research (Anderson & Shattuck, 2012) approach to

course development. As will be seen in the next section, this process found

remarkable differences in the aspects of teaching work that new teachers discerned in

the short space of time between completing their studies and beginning to seek

employment. There was a significant change in discourse and this study provides an

interpretation of that change. The interpretation is based on the principle from

discursive psychology that discourse in speech and text is a form of social activity and

is used to achieve a goal in a given situation or context (Potter, 2010). As such,

through the analysis of speech and text it is possible to attend to the broader social

and institutional contexts that shape it (Wetherell, 1998).

In attending to that broader context in which student discourse occurred, it was

identified that a significant influence on the social activity that the group were trying

to achieve was the adoption in Australia of the governance of teachers’ work through

the logics of New Public Management. The most visible component of this move was

the standardisation of teaching work and the requirement for teachers to demonstrate

performance against a national standards framework adopted during the year of the

course under study. To facilitate a clearer explanation of how this reading of the data

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was reached, this section of the paper provides a brief overview of how NPM is being

applied to the governance of teachers, teaching and teacher education in Australia.

In the logic of New Public Management, the key to successful reform and

improvement of public service is found in maximising the opportunities for

innovation of those ‘on the ground,’ as opposed to top-down reform (Hall, Gunter, &

Bragg, 2012; Takayama, 2013). It is the logic of the ‘free’ market that players

competing within a market will find more efficient and more effective ways to deliver

their product or service. In spheres such as teaching where no natural market exists,

the NPM approach is to develop a market proxy in the form of benchmarks that must

be met, but not to specify exactly how they are to be met. In this way, the logic

contends, the ‘market’ benefits of ‘on the ground’ creativity, problem solving and

efficiency finding can be realised without the profit motive of the private sector.

Through reforms built on this logic, the state in many parts of the world has de-

intensified its direct service provision role and turned to contractual forms of

governance, using market mechanisms or a ‘competition state’ to continue to drive

change (Ball, 2009). Publicly positioned as ‘efficiencies’ with a focus on ‘quality,’

these reforms have changed, and are continuing to change, the very basic

arrangements of schools and the teaching that goes on within them.

The application of NPM across government has had many critics. Early among them

was Power (1994) who identified that rather than freeing up public services and

professions, this approach actually tended to lead to an ‘audit society’ in which the

benchmarks have replaced the actual service as the purpose of publicly managed

activity. With a focus on education, Ball (2003) has identified that policy built on this

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logic has been applied with ‘vigour to schools, colleges and universities’ embedded in

the policy technologies of the market, managerialism and performativity. In Ball’s

use, performativity is a ‘mode of regulation that employs judgements, comparisons

and displays as a means of incentive, control, attrition and change (p. 216)’. The issue

of who determines what is to count as a valuable performance, he argues, can cause

great challenges, and even ‘terror’, for those whose performance is being judged.

In Australia the logics of NPM have been applied to the governance of teaching

through a number of policy instruments, but most notably the adoption of codified

professional standards. Governance based on standards was introduced in different

states at different times over the first decade of the 21st century, before being replaced

by national standards (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership,

2011). Bodies in each state monitor teacher compliance with the national standards

that, while called by names such as institutes and colleges of teachers, are actually

statutory bodies whose boards are typically dominated by the employer groups.

As elsewhere, the adoption of standards for the benchmarking of Australian teachers

work has created immense performative pressures. In an on-going way through at

least annual review teachers are now required to demonstrate competence against no

fewer than 36 elements of professional practice and are required to frame their

professional learning in terms of those standards (Australian Institute for Teaching

and School Leadership, 2012). This is the contractual logic of the New Public

Management. Teachers are not explicitly told how they are to conduct their classes,

but instead are expected to ‘deliver’ upon a large range of competencies in whatever

manner they, with their supervisor’s agreement, determine is appropriate. This on-

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going requirement to demonstrate competence places an emphasis on performance

and creates a performative environment (Ball, 2003; Usher, 2006). For new teachers

this pressure is amplified by a near constant need to ‘perform’ the standards in

response to the even more frequent surveillance of their probationary period. Even for

those able to easily show the competence required, the time taken to collect the

evidence for review has created a significant additional workload that is not offset by

a reduction to other duties.

Despite the apparent structural withdrawal of governance to an arm’s length position,

the ‘quality’ of teachers and the nature and quality of teacher education has remained

the focus of extensive political and policy debate in Australia. For example, just a

matter of months after the release of the new national standards framework agreed to

by the nine education ministers of Australia’s state, territory and federal governments,

the influential Australian Productivity Commission (2012), an independent statutory

body providing policy advice, released a report explicitly challenging some of the key

directions of these standards, and more generally challenging the efficacy of current

approaches to teacher education. More recently, and despite their strong position that

education is constitutionally a matter for each of the individual states, the new

conservative Australian federal government has begun inquiries into both teacher

education and school curriculum (Pyne, 2014). So while government has adopted the

logics of NPM and is not directly telling teachers how they are to reach the prescribed

benchmarks, the performance of teachers remains a matter of strong public policy

comment, surveillance, and debate, seemingly leaving the ‘terrors’ of performativity

ever, and very publicly, present.

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The move to a performative mode of teacher governance has been documented

internationally. Hargreaves (2009) for example, has suggested that since the middle of

the last century there have been three major turns in public discourse in English

speaking countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia, each

bringing a shift in what is understood as good schooling. The phases he identifies

include a period of optimism and pragmatism in the 1950s followed by a period of

spiritual and cultural awakening in the 1960s and 1970s and the current liberal turn of

individualism beginning in the 1980s. These phases were paralleled respectively by a

massive expansion in participation in education; the rise of ‘progressive’ education;

and the liberal-conservative reforms of the current era.

On a similar time scale, and focussing on discourses of the ‘good teacher’, Connell

(2009) has argued that changing conceptions of the qualities of ‘good’ teachers are

directly related to and reflect broader social changes. She argues that in contemporary

Australia the dominant idea of a good teacher is the ‘competent teacher’ model, and is

similar to Moore’s (2004) conception of the ‘competent craftsperson’. This model,

Connell argues, grows out of the restructuring of technical and vocational education

where ‘distinct skills or competencies were extracted from the matrix of traditional

apprenticeships, packaged and taught as distinct modules… rather than broad trade-

based identities’ (Connell, 2009, p. 217).

The emphasis on specific measurable outcomes has had broad appeal within the ‘audit

culture’ (Power, 2009) of neoliberalism and has been driven by the increasing

attention given by policy makers to multivariate quantitative analysis of school and

teacher ‘effectiveness’ (Connell, 2009, p. 217). In their work, Moore and colleagues

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(Moore et al., 2002) found that teachers in England had repositioned themselves in the

face of this type of reform by adopting a pragmatic disposition that, in turn, led to a

de-politicisation of the teaching profession in that country. Other studies, however,

have noted the inability of many teachers to reposition themselves in the face of

change (Ball, 2003; Clandinin, Downey, & Huber, 2009; Hebson, Earnshaw, &

Marchington, 2007).

The following section presents an analysis of discourse created as text at two

relatively close moments in the pre-professional development of a cohort of new

teachers. The texts describe distinctly different understandings of the job of teaching

at each of the moments. Our contention is that these differences can be interpreted in

terms of the different situations in which the discourse took place, one dominated by

the demands and traditions of the university, the other dominated by the performative

demands of the NPM governance of teachers described above.

Method

The investigation reported here took place in two parts. The initial phase was part of a

wider process of design-based research around a program adopting innovative

approaches to teacher education. One of the authors was a member of the team

teaching in this program, while the other had administrative oversight of the program.

The aim of the research was to provide a rich account of the program, to understand

how it worked, for whom, and in what circumstances (Leonard, Fitzgerald, &

Riordan, In Press). This design-research, conducted with the informed consent of the

students and the approval of the institution’s ethics committee, led to the collection

and analysis of a wide range of both naturalistic and investigative data including

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student assignments, surveys and interviews. Thirty-nine students participated in the

research representing 36% of the students enrolled in the course.

The research was carried out with a mixed methods approach that included

quantitative, discursive, phenomenological, and phenomenographical techniques. The

outcomes of different parts of this analysis have been reported elsewhere (Leonard &

Roberts, 2014; Roberts & Leonard, 2012). This paper draws upon the

phenomenographic analysis of two particular points of data collection in which the

students appear to have discerned, as important, very different aspects of teacher pre-

professional learning. The second phase of the study is an attempt to interpret the

meaning and significance of the change in discernment identified.

The data

The two data points used in this study are connected in that they each called for the

students to respond to a set of ‘provocations’ or focus questions that had been used

throughout the year long post-graduate course such as ‘is teaching a trade or a

profession?’ and ‘how should we control our students?’ . The first data point used in

this study was the student’s final or capstone assignment. The task had been built on

Shulman’s concept of pedagogical reasoning (see Roberts & Leonard, 2012 for a full

description of the approach) and was informed by well-developed Australian work on

the connection of practice and theory in teacher learning (Hammerness, Darling-

Hammond, & Shulman, 2002; Nilsson, 2009). In these assignments, students were

asked to identify a significant moment in their school-based professional experience

and to analyse that moment from the perspective of the different professional

knowledge sources within the course including, but not limited to, learning and

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development theory, inclusive education, learning environments, and supporting

literacy and numeracy development across the curriculum. They were also asked to

use the incident as a basis for discussing the course-wide ‘provocations’. This data

was analysed by a research assistant who had no role in the marking of the

assignments.

The second data-point was a post-course survey conducted a few weeks after the

graded assignments had been returned to the students. This survey was conducted in

addition to the University’s normal evaluation process and was clearly presented to

the students as part of the on-going participatory design-research to assist in

understanding the nature of the learning that had occurred in the course. The students

were asked to describe through open-ended written response what and how they had

learned through different aspects of the course (lectures, readings, assignments, social

media etc). They were also asked to describe what they thought the learning objective

of each of the provocations had been. In this section they were not providing a direct

answer to the provocation questions themselves, but rather they were working at the

meta-level and, as new teachers themselves, they were identifying what they

understood as the pedagogical intent of the questions.

In the two data sets the students have created texts that represent a considered

response to the concepts and issues raised throughout the course by the same set of

provocative questions. The texts at each point were shaped by the same focus

questions and, one would anticipate, drew upon the same learning experiences. The

major difference between the texts was the context in which they were written. The

first texts as assignments for grading were, at least in part, written for the university

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student purpose of good grades. The context of the creation of the second set of texts

is quite different. Here the students have been positioned as professional peers and

asked to contribute their own understandings as collaborators in knowledge building.

It is our contention, however, that the performative environment in which these new

teachers were seeking work was also a context for the discourse created in these later

texts.

Methodologically the choice of survey as opposed to, say, interview or focus group

here was quite deliberate. The intent was to reduce the influence of the teaching team

as far as possible and avoid a so-called Hawthorne effect (Groundwater-Smith &

Mockler, 2009; Sachs, 2003). This effect, explored much more in the fields of health

and management than in education, suggests that at least part of any behaviour change

in a study is the result of the observation that comes with the study rather than the

intervention per se. That is, there is a tendency of participants to want to please those

conducting a study or trial, or to at least be supportive. Debate over the existence or

size of a Hawthorne effect is long running (McCambridge, Witton, & Elbourne,

2014), with even recent meta-analysis (Cook & King, 1968; Harris, 2002) only able to

conclude that there is some effect but unable to reach a firm position on the size or

conditions of the effect. Kahn (McCambridge et al., 2014) has recently argued that the

Hawthorne effect was negligible in a study of innovation in teaching computer

applications in the university setting. The trustworthiness of this study, however, is

moderated by its conclusion that the author’s innovation was successful.

Understanding the nature and conditions of the Hawthorne effect remains a significant

methodological issue for design-based research in education and, we would contend,

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for policy scholarship that is dominated by data collected directly from informants

through interview.

In the absence of strong guidance from the literature, the approach to minimising the

effect of the teacher-researchers in this study was logical. The data was collected after

students had received their final grades so as to remove any sense of institutional

pressure, written responses were sought so as to remove the direct presence of the

researchers during the creation of the discourse, and the participants were invited

through the introduction to the survey to respond as new teachers and co-researchers.

In our analysis we will argue a more complex process than a simple Hawthorne or

observer effect but, as has been noted, the texts produced once the surveillance of the

university was removed were very different from the text produced in relation to the

same focus questions just a few weeks earlier.

Phase 1 – Phenomenographical Analysis

Research in the phenomenographic tradition seeks to develop an ‘awareness of the

meanings, or range of meanings, that learning has for students and the intentionality

with which students approach their studies’ (2014). It investigates the ‘qualitatively

different ways in which people experience, conceptualise, perceive, and understand

various aspects of, and phenomena in, the world around them’ (Akerlind, 2005, p. 5).

Phenomenography involves categorising representations of phenomena within

interview or other text and is typically conducted by the researcher coding the text in

a manner similar to most grounded theory approaches. The method promotes

trustworthiness and credibility through recognition of the inductive role of the

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researcher (Marton, 1986) to respond to emerging themes and remain aware of

contextual understandings (Patton, 2002).

Phenomenography can be distinguished from other traditions in qualitative research in

a number of ways (Barab & Squire, 2004). For example, Phenomenography describes

the variations of meanings found as related rather than independent. In

Phenomenography all understandings are seen as a fragment of the whole of human

understanding and variation emerges due to the way differences in experience and

context influence the aspects of a phenomena that an individual can discern.

Phenomenography positions understanding as context-sensitive and searches for

more, or less, complete or complex understandings. Akerlind (Akerlind, 2005) has

noted that in phenomenography terms such as meaning, understanding, experience,

awareness and perception are used interchangeably. Phenomenography focuses on

collective rather than individual experience and it provides ‘stripped’ rather than

‘rich’ descriptions that focus on the key critical features. The object is to distinguish

one way of experiencing phenomena from a qualitatively different way of

experiencing those phenomena without getting lost in endless minor variation.

To conduct the phenomenographical analysis the researchers separately read the

collated responses in an iterative manner, repeatedly reading through the responses

searching for underlying foci, comparing and contrasting them for similarities and

differences. Once we had each developed a set of hypothesis we worked

collaboratively to establish triangulation of the data (2005, p. 6) by continuing the

iterative examination of the texts and seeking data to confirm, contradict or modify

the emerging hypothesis. The collaborative part of this task was facilitated using

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qualitative data analysis software NVivo 10. This software can help analysis move

beyond thick descriptions and articulate overarching models. It can also assist

researchers to maintain a transparent and auditable account of the research (Patton,

2002).

Findings

The findings of phenomenographic analysis are reported here in two interrelated

ways. Firstly a description of the key aspects of variation in experience or the

‘categories of description’ is provided. This is followed by a description of common

themes of variation running through the categories that also serves to provide the

reader with a sense of the data in use.

Data set 1: Assignments

The phenomenographic approach suggests we see all experiences as related rather

than isolated. As such, the categories of description can be understood as something

of a continuum, each showing greater complexity through discerning smaller

segments of the experience. Within the assignment texts the following pre-

professional learning categories were found:

1. Ways to make the curriculum meaningful to the individual students;

2. An understanding of individual students, their backgrounds and affective

responses;

3. Methods of developing significance, a positive learning environment and a

‘learning community’; and

4. A disposition to reduce person (teacher) bias and to allow greater levels of

student control in the learning environment.

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There was a near universal focus on the (school) student in the major issues

articulated in the assignment text. To many, the presence of students with different

responses to learning seemed to come as a surprise

It was not until after my event that I discovered that the class contained

students with a range of individual learning needs... after 3 weeks of teaching

the class! (Assignment 10).

Upon making such a discovery, most of the texts moved on to identify a need to

understand individual students:

For Ben his emotional needs overrode any drive to complete work, it was

almost as if he was situated within a ZPD in his emotional state (Assignment

18)

Many students even expressed a sense of guilt when they had failed to consider the

individual needs of each student:

But in the midst of all that cat-herding I've been doing, I did notice that he'd

moved... What have I done? I've let this kid down. I'm a failure (Assignment

5).

It was only the assignments showing a more complex understanding that moved on

from statements of guilt or frustration and clearly identify areas for professional

development:

In essence, I had substituted engaging my students with good teaching practice

for coercing them into paying attention to poor practice." "You know you're

doing something wrong when a common question is 'Can we please do

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something interesting today?' Or at least, I should have known something was

wrong (Assignment 19).

In this assignment the pre-service teacher built upon the concept of individual student

difference to discern a need to ensure curriculum held significance for the students.

The most complex responses went further and identified the need to learn not just

skills, but also the dispositions of a teacher. In some cases this required not just

professional but possibly personal growth:

Why was I so completely thrown by the simple act of a student avoiding eye

contact?... However, my reasons for doing this [ignoring a student's question]

were more selfish than altruistic (Assignment 24).

In other cases it led to a more critical engagement with the curriculum being taught,

and to a recognition that curriculum and pedagogy are interrelated:

Why was this student, and others in the class, not engaged in the content?"

"...it raised interesting questions on what I was teaching, why I was teaching

it, how I was teaching it and the level of student engagement (Assignment 32).

Perhaps the problem in my critical incident is not that my students had nothing

to say and said it all too quickly… lies in the fact that I did not truly give them

an opportunity to have anything to say (Assignment 4)

Data-set 2: Post-course texts

While produced by the same students in relation to the same learning and concepts,

the post-course research survey showed understandings of teaching that appeared

spread along an entirely different continuum. Although these texts included extensive

discussion of the ‘delivery’ of the course, the graduates made virtually no comment

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about curriculum. There was the criticism, common in teacher education, that

elements of the course should be more ‘practical’ and related to ‘real classrooms’, but

in response to questions that specifically asked if each aspect of the course was

‘useful’ in preparing them to teach, there was no discussion of new ideas, or new

ways of conceiving teaching, or ways of understanding the role of education or

perhaps most notably, of children.

On this last point the semantic choice is very specific and carried across the cohort.

These beginning teachers talked about ‘classrooms’, but not once in all the thousands

of words collectively written did they even once mention children. When not guided

by the teacher educators, the variation of experience the students articulated in these

texts was around matters of personal learning preference, but that did not extend to a

critical evaluation of how the learning prepared them for their future work with

children. Nor did it once engage with the translation of their specific curriculum area

into pedagogical practice. The description of teaching found here is entirely generic.

Again listed in order of increasing complexity, the following understandings of the

learning needs of new teachers were discerned in these post-course texts:

1. Teaching requires technical skills;

2. The technical skills of teaching can be learned by observing teacher educators

and experienced teachers;

3. Solving problems in teaching often requires collaboration with experienced

teachers and peers; and

4. Collaborative problem solving may require information or skills from beyond

the group of teachers present.

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It is notable that the students articulating category one seemed to have had a broadly

negative experience of the initial teacher education course, fundamentally rejecting

the teaching approach and assessment adopted. These students articulated an

instrumentalist understanding of learning in which the object was to complete the

task, and in which it is appropriate for learning to involve long hours of largely

private study. The group articulating category two were more engaged with the

course, but saw the ability of the lecturers to pass on and model solid generic teaching

skills as the most valuable part of this experience.

In discussing the course in this post-course setting, the students were entirely focussed

on how they had learned rather than what they had learned. Apart from category one

(technical skills) students emphasised the importance of contact with the teaching

team and with each other. In challenging the use of online lectures within the course,

for example, one student noted that she ‘would have preferred to be able to sit in the

lecture theatre and have the uni experience, to network with other students and be able

to ask questions’ (Response 14). Physical and intellectual human contact was a strong

recurring theme throughout the student response. In discussing tutorials, for example,

the majority of students were very positive about ‘getting to know each of the

[teaching team] better’, but many were critical of student presentations taking away

from their time to ‘really get to know [their] peers and learn from them through

discussion and debate’ (Response 2). Similarly it was commonly agreed that the

social media strategy provided in the course was a ‘great way of discussing ideas with

people, reading other people’s thoughts etc’ (Response 32). While the data showed

some students had a preference for face-to-face contact and others liked the online

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environment, there was a near constant message that social interaction was an

important part of their learning. The variation was in the understanding of how this

interaction supported learning.

On the rare occasions when students did comment on being engaged with ‘big ideas,’

comments were always qualified; for example: ‘I found [a cultural diversity unit] and

[an inclusive education unit] very engaging (not that productive, but very engaging)’

(Response 12). Notably the units referred to here made up one-quarter of the course

work within the program and was largely ignored in the survey response, but when it

was mentioned it was categorised as ‘not that productive’. This suggest the variation

across the cohort was in a philosophical and ethical interest in inclusion in education,

but that perhaps none in the cohort really saw it as relevant to their immediate

professional practice. There was also the view expressed that this was the area that

was too ‘theoretical’ with specific criticism of the inclusion of current research

literature which was seen as too specific to offer generic ‘practical’ advice.

The variation in the discussion of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs)

was centred on personal comfort with using them, and the different value assigned to

engaging with peers. The majority of the group did place a high value on peer

engagement and saw social media as a valuable tool for that purpose. The variation

from this student experience and the designers’ intent is stark. The program design

and delivery deliberately and explicitly modelled the use of social media as a tool for

accessing additional expertise both as a school teaching strategy and as a professional

learning tool. The modelling of the use of blogs, podcasts, on-line lectures,

conferences, digital collections and open-access research papers that took place in the

program, and that students successfully implemented in their assessment, was

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completely absent from the extensive discussion of ICTs in the post-graduation

survey.

Discussion of the assignment that produced data-set 1 showed a similar pattern. Some

within the cohort simply rejected this approach. They expected a teacher education

program to show them how to perform as a teacher and simply did not discern that the

analysis of events in school was part of this. Most of the group, however, did see high

value in the assessment structure, engaged with it in both a professional and scholarly

way, and reported it to be of great value:

[the assessment] made the individual units come together to create a holistic

and complete picture of what it means to be a “reflective practitioner”

(Response 12).

Their understanding of ‘reflection’, however, was quite specific. The core instructions

of the assignment were:

You will need to critically and deeply reflect upon this event and the

influences upon it, i.e., ‘what happened?’ and ‘why?’ This reflection will

make explicit reference to the theories, educational research and practices

you have studied [emphasis added].

In the work they submitted for assessment, most students engaged in reflexive

analysis well, but in the survey they wrote only of reflection on their own experiences

with no sense of a process connecting theory and practice.

Variation

23

The two sets of text were created by the same group of people engaging in the same

cloud of concepts and were created only weeks apart, yet they tell a very different

story about what is important in teaching. While there are important variations within

each group of texts, it is the variation between them that is most significant. The first

set of texts reveals an understanding of teaching that is responsive to the students, that

requires an understanding of the students’ context, and demands attention to one’s

own dispositions. The second set of texts, in contrast, reveals understandings that are

reflective on the teacher-self, and that expresses confidence and even faith in the

ability of a collective of teachers to have the skills, knowledge and resources to solve

any and all educational problems. In a phenomenographic sense, despite being created

later the second set of texts show a less complex discernment of concepts about

teaching than the first. They represent an earlier stage of learning than was present in

the assignments.

Interpretation

Through the evaluation described in the previous section we concluded that a group of

students who had discerned quite complex concepts about the nature of teaching work

in their capstone assignments, had returned to using simpler concepts when writing

about teacher professional learning just a few weeks later. This shift was stark with

the assignment texts being entirely student focussed and the later texts making no

mention of children in any way.

It must be noted that the nature of the writing tasks did encourage this difference to

some extent. In the first task students were asked to analyse an occurrence in school

and so children were structurally included in the writing task, whereas in the second

24

text the students were asked to write about what was important in teacher professional

learning and so they naturally placed themselves at the centre. This structural

difference, however, does not explain the complete absence of children from the later

texts. While a change of focus might be expected, the complete absence of children,

and indeed of subject specific curriculum and pedagogy, cannot be expected in any

discussion of teaching work and requires interpretation. To interpret the variation

found, we call first upon the understandings of text construction that come from

discursive psychology, and then on the understandings of experiential learning

developed by Kolb.

Discourse and purpose

Scholars in the field of discursive psychology have argued that discourse does not

reveal the constructs such as attitudes, beliefs or understandings that are ‘held’ by the

creators of the discourse. Rather, they contend, discourses should be seen as

discursive positions taken up in the interest of accomplishing specific ends in a

particular context (Salmona, Melton, & Miller, 2013). If this argument is followed,

then identifying key constructs within the discourse makes it possible to attend to the

contexts and situations that have shaped the creation of that discourse (Potter, 2004,

2010). This argument has important implications for policy scholarship, which is

heavily reliant on discourse analysis of various forms, although not always with

regard to the purposes of the creators of the discourse. It suggests that neither

naturalistic nor investigative texts (research interviews etc.) can be seen as revealing

the beliefs and attitudes held by particular actors in the policy setting. Rather they

might be seen as revealing the discursive positions that those actors believe will assist

them in achieving their goals in the social, institutional and policy context.

25

This approach to discourse provides the basis for a compelling interpretation of the

variation described in the findings of this study. It suggests that the students are not

showing their learning or conceptual understandings but rather they are, knowingly or

unknowingly, creating discursive positions that they feel will assist them to succeed in

the context in which they find themselves. This is a compelling argument in the

research under discussion. While each group of texts were created only a few weeks

apart, they were separated by the significant contextual change created by the

completion of the course. They were no longer students; they were graduates, new

teachers or, perhaps, job seekers. The near uniform change of emphasis of the 39

participants suggests that both the university and the new context each created a

powerful need for a particular discursive position. In the university setting, for

example, the students had clearly picked up the lecturers’ interests in student centred

education. We contend, however, that the post-course texts can be interpreted as a

new teacher response to the performative environment that they perceived in schools

in the era of New Public Management.

The interpretation of the second texts as a discursive response to a change in context

is built upon the key concepts discerned in those texts. As new teachers, this group

articulated a key need to display technical but generic teaching skills, they identified

that these skills could be learned through observation of more experienced teachers

(who would also, by and large, be the group assessing their performance), and they

held the position that educational problems could be solved through reflection on

existing knowledge at the personal or group level. These positions are consistent with

a performative environment that demands: competence over the academic tradition of

26

questioning; that holds that good teaching can be codified in standards rather than be

an ever evolving and contested practice; and that glorifies the performance of

‘reflection’ over moving on in the learning cycle to abstract conceptualisation and

even active experimentation. These post-course texts represent a position that is

highly suitable for observation within the performative environment of current policy.

Similarly, the assignment texts provide a discursive position suitable for observation

by us, the university lecturers. As such, neither text can be seen as significantly

representative of student learning. The differences between them, however, are highly

informative about the different pressures experienced during their creation. We turn

now to a consideration of the effect of the different pressures experienced by new

teachers on their (pre)professional learning.

Experiential Learning

27

Figure 1: Kolb's Experiential Learning Theory

Kolb’s (Wetherell, 1998) Experiential Learning Theory provides a framework to take

this interpretation further with particular regard to understanding how policy context

influences the mechanics of learning. Kolb’s theory addresses four dynamic stages of

learning: accommodative, diverging, assimilating, and convergent. Individual learners

are commonly more comfortable with one phase of learning over the others, but we

use this model as it shows the transition from abstract conceptualisation to active

experimentation that is required of learning in a professional context such as teaching.

The four phases can be presented as the product of two variables: a processing

continuum, or how we approach a task; and a perception continuum, or how we think

and feel about a task. The model is represented in figure 1.

28

Kolb & Kolb (1984) argue that learners teeter between the abstract and the active

when faced with unfamiliar situations. Regardless of the participant’s level of content

knowledge, they found that participants may only experiment with their actions when

a specific trigger point is engaged because perceived risks within a situation may

appear too great to take action. To interpret the variation found in this study, we argue

that this balancing point can actually go either way, and that participants may be

unwilling to engage in thinking when the perceived risks of the inaction that thinking

may create are too great.

As part of their university learning, the majority of students seemed to be entirely able

to work around this learning cycle. Some expressed reservations about being able to

identify an appropriate event for analysis and were not confident about their ‘feel’ for

the field, others lacked confidence in applying theory or found this type of work

overly abstract, but virtually all were able to engage at each step of the cycle with a

moderate to high level of competence. The qualification on this being that there is no

way to determine the extent to which they accommodated the learning into practice

because, as pre-service teachers, this was their initial practice.

Despite this successful engagement, the understandings of professional learning needs

expressed in the post-course survey are more limited. They are no longer university

students responding to their lecturers’ interests and influenced more by the pressures

of the performative work environment, the understandings of learning they express

appears to be entirely at the ‘feeling’ end of the perception continuum of Kolb’s

model. This short circuits the learning cycle in that their articulated reflective practice

29

skips directly from ‘diverging’ to ‘accommodating’ without the assimilating and

converging steps that they clearly were engaging in as students.

Conclusion

Performative environments create a distinctive risk profile for professional learning.

In adult learning risk has traditionally been understood by most learners to lay in

taking premature action with all the potential affective consequences. In contrast, in a

performative environment, the risks of inaction are far greater as failure to actively

demonstrate competence can dramatically slow career progression and potentially

lead to dismissal. When this is considered in terms of Kolb’s Experiential Learning

Theory, it can be seen that a performative environment pushes learners quickly to

action (to the left of the diagram in Figure 1). Still, action requires some base, and if it

is not abstract conceptualisation then Experiential Learning Theory suggests it will be

the professional’s own concrete experience.

The outcome of abstraction being a high risk activity is that it is replaced by a hollow

approximation and ‘performance’ of abstraction. For example, the graduates

articulated a clear position that sharing their experiences with other teachers was an

important activity within their professional practice. Many termed this ‘reflective’

practice. They did not, however, articulate an understanding of other practices that

were taught within the course such as critical thinking, looking for multiple sources of

information in approaching a problem, or making use of research knowledge to help

explain the situations they would encounter.

30

So driven by performance was their understanding of reflective practice articulated in

the second texts that not even once were children mentioned in their descriptions. The

purpose they saw for the reflective skills and language taught within the course was to

publicly examine their own teaching as something apparently quite separate to their

student’s learning. Interestingly the Australian teaching standards authority actively

encourages this practice among practicing teachers through an on-line discussion

forum Teacher Feature where teachers share their practice in relation to the standards

in short bites that do not allow space for critique or evaluation of the effectiveness of

the shared practice.

The notion that early career teachers understand their learning needs as largely in the

‘accommodating’ sector of Kolb’s model without engaging in the other learning

stages is troubling. The very word ‘accommodating’ suggest that learning should not

and will not lead to transformational change, and that the problems of professional

practice can be resolved within one’s current knowledge and experience. For this

reason, we argue that the logic of the New Public Management is being defeated by

its current implementation in the area of teacher professional learning. The promise of

the New Public Management is that it provides an environment for innovation and

experimentation free from the burdens of top-down control. It is apparent, however,

that the performative environment it creates actively works against professional

learning being a basis for the creation of new knowledge or moves towards

innovation.

A decade ago, reflecting on the findings of a large research project into effective

teaching practices dubbed ‘productive pedagogies’, Gore and her colleagues argued

31

that teacher education had developed an ‘overemphasis on classroom environments

and processes rather than on substance and purposes’ and that the purpose of field

experience ‘too often [focused] on practising teaching techniques with relatively little

concern for what is being taught and the quality of learning produced (pp. 385-386).

The analysis in this study suggests it will be difficult to move back towards a greater

concern for substance and purpose while teachers are so heavily driven by

performative demands.

This finding should not be read as an argument that teachers do not need to perform

well or maintain high standards, rather it is an argument that current policy enactment

is having a self-defeating impact on teacher learning and that alternatives should be

considered. A move away from specifying the performance and towards higher level

professional capabilities might better encourage engagement in the full learning cycle.

An example is Sachs’ (2005) ‘activist teacher’ focussing on meta-competencies such

as advising, issue and problem identification, spreading ideas, providing alternative

perspectives, evaluating programs, and advocacy. The critique implicit in the title of

this article is a further example. For quality professional learning that is expansive,

teachers need time to think. The current pressure to skip straight to performance

reduces the time they have. This approach may lead to the performance of some

aspects of best practice in the short term, but a reduction to deep and effective

professional learning that engages all phases of the learning cycle will significantly

reduce the capacity of teachers to draw on their learning in response to new and

changing circumstances, and the changing needs of students. Given that the

performative environment of current governance modes is not likely to be reduced in

32

the short term, there is a need for further research and development in both curriculum

and policy design that enhances expansive teacher professional learning.

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