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Teachers' Implicit Theories Concerning Questioning
Author(s) -
Mitchell Jim
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/0141192940200107
Subject(s) - set (abstract data type) , psychology , mathematics education , context (archaeology) , recall , microteaching , ethnography , focus (optics) , teacher education , pedagogy , cognitive psychology , computer science , sociology , anthropology , programming language , paleontology , physics , optics , biology
This paper reports findings from research based on case studies of two in‐service teachers which, as part of a larger study in the area of teacher thinking and using data derived from ethnographic and stimulated recall interviews, sought to examine the nature and structure of teachers' ‘implicit’ theories concerning the skill of questioning. Data indicated that the teachers formulated theories about the skill which although idiosyncratic and incomplete contained common elements in the form of ‘beliefs’ about the skill, the ‘functions’ they saw it performing, and the strategies deemed to relate to the appropriate or inappropriate implementation of the skill. Teachers' strategies took the form of ‘rules’ and ‘principles’ which guided the use of questioning in their classrooms and detailed questioning ‘models’. These ‘models’ were found to be complex in structure, involving an integration of beliefs, functions, rules and/or principles, appropriately exemplified and set in a particular teaching context. Teachers' models were seen to differ in structure and focus from the skill models such as those commonly employed in microteaching programmes.