PhD project
Teachers, curriculum and purposes of education: Connecting theory and practice
How can we gain insights in the connection between teaching practices and theoretical elaborations of purposes of education?
- Duration
- 2018 - 2025
- Contact
- Kevin Zweeris
Researchers
- K. Zweeris - PhD candidate
- prof. dr. F.J.J.M. Janssen - supervisor
- dr. E.H. Tigelaar - c0-supervisor
Schools and teachers in secondary education are increasingly expected to develop curricula and teaching practices which contribute to student development beyond the mere acquisition of knowledge and skills for tests. This project is aimed at developing tools that support teachers in exploring the goals underlying everyday teaching practices and connecting them to theories about purposes of education.
Social relevance
Education and curriculum development will always be inextricably linked to questions about purposes of education. In a constantly changing society, research on how to engage in dialogue about purposes of education and how to support teachers in developing teaching practices accordingly, is crucial to develop a broad understanding of good education.
Scientific relevance
Research on purposes of education and frameworks for curriculum development often focuses on specific or generic elaborations of purposes of education. On the one hand, specific elaborations do not do justice to the full complexity of purposes of education, while on the other hand generic elaborations offer too little specificity to reflect purposefully on teaching practices. This research project aims to develop instruments that support teachers’ reflections on the educational purposes underlying to their everyday teaching practices and explore and consider alternative purposes of education.
Topic
- Study 1: Exploring the use of goal systems to gain insights in general purposes underlying teaching practice.
- Study 2: Making sense of purposes of education: A guiding framework for reflection and development.
- Study 3: Teachers’ reflections on purposes of education: bridging theory and practice.
- Study 4: Proposing a new rationale for curriculum development.
Materials and methods
An important tool in this project is the bottom-up and top-down goal system laddering interview, with which researchers and teachers construct a teacher’s goal system to gain insights in the goals underlying to teaching practices.
Moreover, an integrated framework of curriculum orientations and goal domains was developed and elaborated to provide a framework that offers insights in both general purposes of education, and specificity about goals in relation to student development.
Zweeris, K., Tigelaar, E.H., & Janssen, F.J.J.M. (2023). Studying curriculum orientations in teachers’ everyday practices: A goal systems approach. Teaching and Teacher Education, 122, p. 1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2022.103969