Second and foreign language teachers’ problem-solving schemata development through informal problem-solving : the relationship between experience and expertise
Dimitrova, Vyara V.; McKenney, Susan; Kirschner, Paul A. (2021-12-07)
Vyara V. Dimitrova, Susan McKenney & Paul A. Kirschner (2023) Second and foreign language teachers’ problem-solving schemata development through informal problem-solving: the relationship between experience and expertise, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 17:2, 202-216, DOI: 10.1080/17501229.2021.2011894
© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2022030722129
Tiivistelmä
Abstract
Purpose: Second and foreign language (SL/FL) teachers’ informal problem-solving has received little explicit research attention while it is widely acknowledged that problem-solving is crucial to expertise development in any complex knowledge domain. To develop a clearer understanding of the role of informal problem-solving in SL/FL teachers’ expertise development, this study investigated how experience (i.e. time on the job) affects the level of problem-solving schemata development.
Design/methodology/approach: This situational analysis of teaching practices was conducted with 15 SL/FL teachers divided into three experience groups. Through qualitative coding of verbal reflections on teachers’ own lessons, the structural components of problem-solving schemata development were explored at two levels. The first or basic level represents the broader knowledge base which problem-solving utilizes in understanding and recognizing classroom situations. The second is the expert-level problem-solving knowledge level. Qualitative codes were quantified to enable descriptive statistics and t-tests for the analysis regarding the basic level. A descriptive analysis was performed to uncover expert-level knowledge.
Findings and Originality/value: The results show that experience affects problem-solving schemata development in qualitatively different ways at different levels. At the first or basic level, most teachers develop extensive and numerous domain-specific problem-solving schemata with experience. Few experienced teachers develop expert-level schemata. At this level, experience mostly affects the type of domain-specific knowledge and quality of feedback on effective strategies incorporated in these schemata. The findings suggest that future studies need to adopt a multi-level analysis of problem-solving schemata development.
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