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A Teacher Development Approach to Bridging thePractice‐Research GapJohn Smyth aa Deakin UniversityPublished online: 29 Sep 2006.

To cite this article: John Smyth (1982) A Teacher Development Approach to Bridging the Practice‐Research Gap, Journal ofCurriculum Studies, 14:4, 331-342, DOI: 10.1080/0022027820140403

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J. CURRICULUM STUDIES, 1982, VOL. 14, NO. 4, 331-342

A Teacher Development Approach toBridging the Practice-Research Gap

John SmythDeakin University

Introduction

If it is possible to isolate any kind of recognizable theme in education in the 1980s,apart from drastic cuts in funding, it would have to be growing concern anduneasiness about 'qualitative' aspects of schooling. As employment, advancement,and job mobility prospects within the work-place generally (and- teaching moreparticularly) diminish, pressures are mounting to attend to matters of morale and theprofessional development and renewal of those already employed. In the muchheralded (but as yet unarrived) resources boom in this 'lucky country', but scantattention seems to have been given to servicing the human capital needs of the nation.Indeed, the recent dismantling of 30 Australian colleges of advanced education,massive cuts in university expenditures, the abandonment of the EducationalResearch and Development Committee as the only government source of fundingfor educational research, and the scrapping of the national Curriculum DevelopmentCentre, speaks for itself about the political priorities in this country regarding humanresource development in education. Paradoxically, this is happening in an era ofrapid (although largely unacknowledged) transition from a youthful to an ageingteaching force.1 The reality is, therefore, that many teachers who have been teachingfor 10—15 years are entering a mid-career phase, ill-equipped to prepare the youngfor life in the 21st century.

The current situation becomes a little clearer when we look at it against thebackground of earlier developments. While the 1950s and 1960s were characterizedby a concern with the 'numbers game' of getting sufficient teachers into schools, thehallmark of the 1970s was a move to force democratization in schools mainly throughthe mechanism of school-based curriculum development. That this move was onlypartly successful, is now generally acknowledged.2'3 One of the curious enigmasemerging out of the curriculum development era is that it proceeded withcomparatively little concern for the human resource development of the teachersactually involved. It was almost as if the implementation of school-based curriculumdevelopment was a technical process that could be orchestrated from outside ofschools. Sure, there were token gestures in the form of isolated and largely ineffectualin-service days, but it would be hard to argue that these amounted to any kind ofcoherent policy of staff development for teachers. The whole situation becomes evenmore perplexing when we remember that teaching is a profession concernedpredominantly with the management and utilization of knowledge. Yet, at thebureaucratic level as well as among individual teachers, knowledge about pedagogy

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and the processes associated with the acquisition and transmission of knowledge, donot seem to be highly prized.

Before we can expect teachers to be adept at handling the tricky political (andpedagogical) issues associated with developing curricula suited to local circum-stances, we need first to have a body of teachers who are knowledgeable aboutthemselves as professionals. They need to be aware of iheir own 5i.re11gi.hs anuweaknesses as classroom practitioners, and able to be reflective and introspectiveabout their teaching and what transpires in their classrooms. Sadly, teachers withthese qualities are a rarity! As a community we have grown to expect that theresponsibility for ensuring quality teaching and learning experiences is a centralizedbureaucratic function. Teachers generally have not been nurtured to the view thatthey have an important professional responsibility to continuously monitor theirown teaching, and to assist colleagues to do the same in a non-judgemental andinformative context.4 As applied to schooling, the comments of Nobel prizewinnerSaul Bellow are germane: 'It is a long time since the knees were bent in piety'.Goodlad expressed the same sentiment when he said: 'In education it is a long timesince we paid homage to the essence of our profession'.5

In the remainder of this paper I want to deal with one of the more pressing andtroublesome problems confronting school administrators at the moment—how bestto provide for the professional growth and renewal of large numbers of teachers whohave little chance of gaining promotions and who are likely to remain in the sameschool for several decades. In particular, I will expand on the virtues of a clinicalmethod of teacher development and how it might be used to inform teachers abouttheir daily practices, and obviate the disparity between what teachers intend to do andwhat they actually do in their classroom teaching.6 I will conclude by suggesting thatthis clinical methodology may have utility, not only as a form of assisted self-analysisof teaching, but as a mechanism of experimenting with the implementation of'research' findings in teachers' own classrooms.

My overall purpose, therefore, is to flesh out the important point made by Ryanand Hickcox about the increasing need to forge viable and meaningful linkagesbetween the hitherto unrelated fields of teacher evaluation, professional develop-ment, instructional supervision, and research on teaching. In their words: 'Suchlinkages could serve to merge procedural and substantive advances and to reduce thedependence of [those involved in the professional development of teachers] uponunsubstantiated beliefs about teaching effectiveness and upon unsatisfactory [and]subjective processes'.7

Emerging themes from research on professional development

The prevailing norm in the in-service education of teachers tends to favour sporadicin-service 'days'. There are a number of problems associated with this approach thatare not always understood or acknowledged. As Rubin has noted:

Throughout the long history of schools, provisions for the improvementof the in-service of teachers have rarely been adequate . . . A majority ofprograms were either so prescriptive that they insulted the teacher'sintelligence, ignoring the need to fit teaching to one's own style and to thepecularities of the particular classroom, or they were too vague to beuseful.8

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Periodically requiring teachers to desert their classrooms to attend a conferenceor seminar where they receive information from self-styled 'experts', is founded on abelief about some kind of deficit model. The implicit presumption is that teachershave weaknesses in their teaching, or gaps in their knowledge, that requirecorrection. In most cases there has been no real attempt to ascertain where teachersare at in their personal and professional development, what are their real concernsand problems, and indeed how information they have gained can be effectivelytranslated into classroom practice and monitored.9

Dawson has argued, rather forcefully, that:

A one-shot, one-time only in-service day... will not suffice, and con-stitutes a waste of time and money. As a first step in a continuing processof in-service, such one day sessions can be of value as a means of initiatingthe dialogue. But in training sessions as with love affairs, one nightencounters do not bring lasting fulfilment, and are essentially degradingand dehumanizing for all participants; and a series of one-night standsonly multiplies the degradation and dehumanization. Yet in-serviceactivities in the past have too often had the essential character of one nightstands (p. 52).10

Dawson also points out that any form of in-service education which 'views teachersas docile, passive recipients of reality (someone else's reality), will be rejected byteachers' (p. 52). He argues that they may attend, they may even get involved to someextent, 'but if the activities do not deal directly with teachers' perceived reality, theactivities will have little permanent effect on the teachers' (p. 50). A far morepowerful method of enhancing the professional renewal of teachers involves a humanresource development approach with teachers and staff development personnelworking towards a shared psychological sense of commitment and ownership basedon dialogue and a long-term view of development.11

Questions about how educational research might usefully inform practice aredifficult, if not impossible, to answer. Notwithstanding this problem, there are some• consistent pointers that emerge across a number of studies that have enquired intoeffective methods of staff development. This is not to suggest that research on thistopic has been without its problems. As Mazzarella has noted:

A majority of publications are evaluation reports rather than realresearch. In many of them, administrators or teachers write up a programused in their school. It is almost always a successful program since no onelikes to publish failures.12

The RAND13 and I/D/E/A14 studies in the USA, reached very similarconclusions on what seems to work best. Both studies emphasized five major points:

(a) The individual school site, and classrooms in particular, should be the focusof staff development activities.

(b) Actual staff development activities should be identified by the individualteachers and administrators concerned.

(c) Individual teachers and administrators within schools represent a reservoirof untapped expertise in respect of their own professional development.

(d) To facilitate the release of this potential through problem identification andsolution, teachers and administrators should be provided with the timerelease needed.

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(e) To assist in this, modest support will be necessary from agencies outside ofthe school, to assist in skill development.15

Coupled with these findings are a number of facts that are beginning to become self-evident about the way adults learn. Withall and Wood,16 and Wood andThompson,17 argue that effective staff development for teachers will only occurwhere the goais and objectives are interpreted as being 'reaiistic' and of immediateimportance to the job of teaching. They argue, furthermore, that 'adults need to seethe results of their efforts and have accurate feedback about progress towards theirgoals' (Wood and Thompson,17 p. 377). Given teachers' natural fears aboutevaluation and assessment of performance, adult learning as it relates to the processof teaching, has to acknowledge the importance also of a certain degree of 'egoinvolvement'. It is important, therefore, to identify and build upon strengths as wellas searching out areas of weaknesses. This suggests a strong need to acknowledgewhere individuals are at in their personal and professional development and thediversity of their prior knowledge and experience, while providing teachers withconsiderable discretion in their continuing development as professionals.

Joyce and Showers's18 review of 200 studies of effective staff developmentproduced essentially the same conclusions. They found five major componentswhich, when orchestrated, characterize effective staff development:

(i) A theoretical component which provides a rationale for the proposedactivity,

(ii) A demonstration aspect of how the activity works in practice (either live, orthrough visual-recorded means),

(iii) An opportunity to practice new skills and strategies under real or simulatedclassroom conditions,

(iv) Regular, consistent and focused feedback of a constructive nature aboutclassroom behaviour and occurrences,

(v) Actual assistance in the form of 'coaching' so that teachers are assisted in theapplication phase of trialling a new strategy or skill in the classroom.

Joyce and Showers (p. 385) argue that although we clearly need further researchdata on each cell within this matrix, there is nevertheless clear evidence that a'coaching to application' approach combined with a 'problem-solving strategy',using a variety of people within schools, does work. Likewise, these suggestions areconsistent with the findings of McNergney et al}9 They found that effective staffdevelopment was 'personalized' (recognizing the needs and abilities of individualteachers), 'interactive' (acknowledging the reciprocal effects of learners, teachers,tasks and context), 'contemporaneous' (and of immediate practical significance toteachers), and 'developmental' (or occurring within a significant time-frame).

Discussion so far points to what Howey describes as a 'job-embedded' and 'on-site' approach to teacher development.20 It has the obvious merit of involvingteachers in professional development that is integrated into the normal course ofdaily responsibilities rather than being something done outside of classrooms or atthe end of a day of teaching. The role of the teacher within this approach alsoundergoes dramatic change from a position of docile recipient to one of an active andequal participant in a collaborative problem-solving strategy. Obvious advantagesflow from locating professional growth programmes close to the work-place; asWagstaff and McCullough point out—adult learning is 'richly enhanced whenpeople work solving problems which have meaning for them'.21

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A 'clinical' form of teacher development

The kind of in situ self-reflective model of staff development suggested in the citedresearch is not without its set of problems. Quite apart from the administrativeproblems of how to organize such programmes within schools, there are importantstrategic issues relating to the capability of teachers to act in a self-evaluativemanner, and the feasibility of this kind of action given the enormous complexity ofclassrooms as social settings. MacKay and Marland's study of teachers' thoughtprocesses during lessons, made this point clearly enough:

classrooms and classroom activities did not provide reflecting surfaceswhich enabled teachers to 'see themselves' at work. The evidence in thisstudy seems to support the notion that the classroom scene, whichpresents to the teacher's senses, such a rapidly changing kaleidoscope ofevents, prevents the teacher from seeing a clear and stable image ofhimself.22

Arends et al. have also spoken about the crowded nature of the teacher's day andthe lack of 'sustained professional dialogue with its potential for energising one withnew ideas, excitement and planning, and for reinforcement of known successes'(p. 199).23 Dawson also highlights the paradox of teachers who work in intenselycrowded and densely populated settings yet suffer a psychological sense of lonelinesson the job.10 Whether as a 'cause' or a 'consequence', Ross summarized the outcomethus:

The communication network in school facilitates consultation amongteachers on curriculum issues but interaction typically concerns personalrather than professional concerns. The utility of these discussions isfurther hampered by the cognitive styles of teachers . . . (W)hen teachersdiscuss educational matters among themselves their conversations arecharacterized by an absence of technical language, conceptual simplicity,an uncomplicated view of causality, concreteness, narrow workingdefinitions etc—factors which have been unkindly summarized by Walleras 'gradual deadening of the intellect'.24

Despite the large body of research and writing about teachers' needs andconcerns (Fuller,25 and Easteott and Hall26) teachers do require assistance on askingquestions about their own teaching and arriving at a mature stage of critical self-awareness. One teacher expressed it neatly:

given a reasonably secure and supportive psychological climate, it is stillhard for me to tell someone about what my real needs are. This may be

- - • • because I don't know what my real needs are, or perhaps because I don'tget timely and appropriate feedback in my work, or because I don't attendto the feedback I do get. Perhaps, more accurately, I 'm not used to talkingabout my needs, and I'm very hesitant to share much of myself withsomeone else who might or might not help me . . . My guess is that myreluctance to communicate needs is a condition widely shared in theteaching profession (Arends et al.,23 p. 198).

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The declared advantages of self-analysis, albeit assisted in the initial stages, areobvious enough. As Bodine indicates:

Self-assessment is probably the most powerful means yet developed for ateacher to be the master of his own professional growth. . . Self-assessment, like opening a door, allows a person to look and see what he isactually doing in the classroom. It is a mirror of his present teachingbehaviour. It gives the teacher objective information about his role in theclassroom and enables the teacher to learn as much as he can about hisown methods of working with and influencing children and otherpeople.27

Teachers, however, still maintain a healthy scepticism towards anything thatinvolves looking inside their classrooms, even if the declared motive is to foster self-assessment. As House indicates: 'After all, what does a teacher have to gain fromhaving his work examined?... Since there are no punishments for not exposing one'sbehavior and many dangers in doing so, the prudent teacher gives lip-service to theidea and drags both feet'.28

Notwithstanding, there is a substantial and growing body of research and opinionthat suggests 'clinical supervision' as a means of helping teachers to utilize teachingcolleagues to locate, diagnose and attend to concerns within their own teaching.Described as a technique that operates in the clinic of the classroom,29 clinicalsupervision rests on the presumption that 'instruction can only be improved bydirect feedback to a teacher on aspects of his or her teaching that are of concern to thatteacher'.30 According to Denham, improvement in instruction can best occur underconditions where the teacher is given direct non-evaluative feedback on aspects ofteaching of concern to that teacher.31

Supervision, in this context, clearly has nothing to do with evaluation, inspectionor quality control. Rather, it has quite a different meaning that relates to 'action andexperimentation',32 aimed at the improvement of instruction and the subsequentpromotion of pupil growth. Couched in these terms, Wiles and Lovell have definedsupervision as: 'any additional behavior system formally provided by the organiz-ation for the purpose of interacting with the teaching behavior system in such a wayas to monitor change, and improve the provision and actualization of learningopportunities for students'.33

Likewise, the troublesome word 'clinical' need not have pathological conno-tations. Garman points to clinical as a 17th-century ecclesiastical word describing abed-ridden person who received baptism on his/her death-bed.34 The term latercame to refer to the branch of medicine and surgery taught, or learned, 'at thebedside'. It is not hard to see the analogy here with the teacher who learns aboutteaching while being actively involved in classroom processes. Expressed slightlydifferently, Mosher argues that it is the focus on the 'what and how of teachers as theyteach'35 and the directness of application, that makes this method of supervision'clinical'.

In reviewing the progression of the concept of clinical supervision since its.inception by Goldhammer36 and Cogan29 as part of the teacher-education pro-gramme at Harvard University in the 1950s, Denham defined it simply as 'efforts toimprove instruction that involve in-class and face-to-face interactive relationshipsbetween teachers and supervisors'.31 While also highlighting the aim of in-structional improvement, Weller revealed more about the actual processes involved

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by defining clinical supervision in terms of systematic cycles of planning, obser-vation, and intensive analysis of actual teaching.37 Moore and Mattaliano identifiedthree purposes:

(a) Helping the teacher to expand his own perception so he may find his ownstrengths and weaknesses more readily.

(b) Helping the teacher to scientifically view his own teaching so his outwardteaching behaviours are synchronized with his own inward intent.

(c) Helping the teacher to solve whatever classroom problems he wants tosolve.38

The thrust of clinical supervision is clearly towards assisting teachers to reducethe often glaring disparity between their intentions and their actions. One of the long-term expectations for clinical supervision is that it will help teachers towardsbecoming self-monitoring professionals. In this respect clinical supervision ac-knowledges the point made by Kogan that self-assessment cannot really exist in apure form—any practitioner, whether artist or otherwise, must be able to respond tosocial judgements, made of his/her work.39 With clinical supervision this occurs in asupportive and collaborative framework with collected data providing the basis forinformed dialogue. At the heart of clinical supervision are the 'conferences' thatoccur between a teacher and a supervizing person (i.e. a peer or colleague). The pre-observation conference, which occurs before the actual lesson is taught, seeks toestablish a consensus about the teacher's intentions, how they will eventuate in thelesson, and some aspect of pedagogy that shall be observed and recorded. The post-observation conference, after the lesson, amounts to a debriefing exercise whereintent and action are compared. The real purpose of collecting and recording dataduring the lesson is so that the teacher can become more informed on some aspect ofhis/her teaching. The teacher is in effect provided with a unique window on his/herteaching, and is assisted in the process, towards enacting a role as researcher ofhis/her own classroom practices. The nature of this research was made clear enoughby Mosher:

As they plan, the teacher and the supervisor are making 'hypotheses' orpredictions, based on their experience, about the effects of the subjectmatter on the students and the alternative methods of teaching underconsideration. The plan, seen in this way, is a set of predictions as to whatwill happen in class, and the actual teaching is a practical test of thoseworking hypotheses.35

Teachers as clinical researchers of teaching

One of the criticisms levelled at clinical supervision is that 'it represents a closed looppattern of activities or procedures'.40 The implication is that the robustness of thetechnique is limited by the experiential background of the participants and theirindividual introspective prowess. Likewise, the question of whether an overridingconcern with the idiographic, or individual cases, is paramount to a proclamation of'closure', is a moot point. The only answer to both these accusations is . . . that it alldepends! In the segment that follows I shall argue that the term 'clinical' may in facthave wider currency in education than we have been prepared to admit41 and that,

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when coupled with the concept of teachers-as-researchers,42 it assumes considerablesignificance.

Looking at various ways of analysing instruction in elementary classrooms,Berliner has noted that the clinical methodology has not been one warmly embracedby the educational research community.43 When not branded 'applied' or downrightSIODDV research, it has been dismissed as either too expensive or not generalizable. Inan area where experimental and statistical research is the entrenched norm, Berlinerclaims there is a 'belief that knowledge generated while serving to help others is ofless worth than knowledge arrived at by other means' (p. 206). It is almost as ifeducational research that relates to 'practicality and immediacy'44 were by definitionlow-status research. Labelling of this kind clearly overlooks the purpose for whichthe research is undertaken.

Good and Power, for example, have argued that research of the kind implied inthe clinical mode has a quite different purpose to that undertaken by experimental orcorrelational means.45 Rather than providing predictions as to likely future events,Good and Power claim that research of the clinical variety derives its utility from 'theguidelines it provides for understanding particular situations and contexts'.Teachers, and those who work closely with them, are not usually interested inresearch of the ilk that involves the application of immutable laws to amorphouspopulations. They are more concerned with research that helps to enlighten orunderstand specific situations.

The idea of teachers gaining a better understanding of their own pedagogy andpractice through the role of quasi-researchers (i.e. with outside assistance), waspopularized by Stenhouse .46 According to Stenhouse 'It is not enough that teachers'work should be studied: they need to study it.themselves'. If teachers are to developand sustain a heightened sense of awareness of their own classroom efficacy, it iscrucial that they be helped to develop methods of distancing themselves from the actof teaching, while at the same tinae remaining involved•• in.it.47- Studies to date suggestthat even experienced teachers unskilled in the processes of self-analysis are not ableto provide accurate self-reports of specific classroom behaviour.48

It may-be, as MacLeod concludes,49 that the information-processing demandsimposed on teachers by the act of teaching is enough in itself to prevent them fromaccurate self-monitoring. To expect teachers to conduct this activity, may be anunrealistic expectation. To ask them to do it within the framework of clinicalsupervision, with the aid of a teaching colleague, may be more realistic (Smyth, 50

Smyth and Strachan,51 McCoombe52).Experimentation and action are important concomitants to teacher sensitivity

and awareness of their own teaching performance and classroom practices. Althoughnew ideas and impetus for change may well emerge from self-confrontation as aresult of clinical supervision encounters, there .are other sources of ideas worthtrialling and monitoring in the classroom. We do need to acknowledge that thebackground, both knowledge and experiential, which the participants bring maylimit the productiveness of their interactive encounters. Other possibilities do exist!For example, even though we know teachers are not traditionally avid readers andusers of research on teaching (Hogben,53 Stenhouse,54 Muir,55 and Herron56) thereis a growing body of research knowledge that can be operationalized (Good,57

Denham and Lieberman,58 Peterson and Walberg,59 and Bennett andMcNamara60). There is clearly a need to exercise caution in how we recommendteachers might make use of research on teaching in classrooms. Nevertheless, as

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Herron stated: 'it would be just as wrong to suggest that research has nothing to say,as it is wrong to suggest that research provides the final answer to all issues thatconcern teachers'.56

In the past, a significant problem has been the way findings from educationalresearch have been treated like agricultural fertilizers—something to be spread!There was no connection between those who did the research, and those upon whomit was done (i.e. teachers who were supposed to ultimately benefit). In its crudestform rules were devised and used in the process of converting teachers. Thisconversion process contained all manner of problems, not the least of which wasuntold damage to teachers' self-concept and their vision of themselves asprofessionals.61

A more constructive and positive scenario involves the concept of transformation.According to Fenstermacher this involves the presentation of research 'findings' toteachers in the from of tentative propositions which they agree to trial in theirclassrooms before reaching decisions about change. What teachers are really doinghere is testing out their 'subjectively reasonable beliefs' about their own teaching,and comparing these against some alternative possibilities. According toFenstermacher, acquiring evidence in this way:

.. .does not require a practitioner to modify beliefs every time researchfindings are presented. It requires only that the practitioner weighseriously' the results of the research . . . Where research findings conflictwith beliefs for which there are other reasonable grounds, the practitionermay be justified in choosing to adapt or ignore the conflicting findings(p. 131).

Where teachers' beliefs are being called into question, as here, what becomesimportant is the delicate balance between support and challenge.15

Gagne's surprising answer to the question of the best way to get research intoclassrooms 'is to put it there'.62 His suggestion took the form of a collaborativepartnership between teachers and 'outsiders' who might work together to design bestways of trialling new ideas in classrooms and monitoring their efficacy. Under theseconditions, findings from research on teaching cease to be conclusive, but take on theform of tentative or 'working hypotheses' to be tried out, accepted or rejected byindividual teachers depending on their individual circumstances.63 What is ofcritical importance is the 'process'; that of identifying classroom concerns, collectingand analysing relevant data, formulating working hypotheses (based on research onteaching), monitoring their experimental introduction, and making informeddecisions about the eventual acceptance or rejection of these ideas as part of anexpanding teaching repertoire. Clinical supervision is clearly one suitable means ofworking through this process.64

Conclusion

This paper commenced by examining the contemporary context of education andproblems generated by inadequate attention to meaningful methods of humanresource development within schools.65 It was suggested that restricted growthwithin schools, coupled with an ageing teaching force, were likely to compound theseproblems. By way of example, there.has been much rhetoric about school-baseddecision-making—the reality has been that teachers have generally been lacking in

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knowledge about their own pedagogy to enable them to participate fully in dialogueto 'open-up' schools and classrooms. With few exceptions, in-service education hastreated teachers as docile, passive recipients of other people's interpretations of whatis desirable professional development.

Research findings canvassed in the area of teacher development suggest thatteachers should be involved as full partners in their own professional development.An aspect that becomes prominent centres on the need to create ways in whichteachers are able to obtain feedback about their own teaching and to view themselvesas competent professionals. The clinical supervision model was suggested as apossibility worth considering. It had the merit of involving collegial support fromwithin schools, and hence facilitating communication at a classroom level, while alsoimposing some kind of rigour through data collection and analysis for informativeand helping purposes. It was argued that, as teachers venture into this as a form ofguided self-analysis, they would become informed researchers of their own classroompractices. Acquiring evidence about personal teaching and weighing up the efficacyof this evidence against empirical findings from research on teaching, was claimed tobe a sensible mode of gradually incorporating empirical findings into classroompractice. Under these conditions, teachers are systematically given the opportunityof analysing their own classroom and the behaviour within it, making informedcomparisons with whatever tentative findings have been generated by researchers inteaching, and altering their practices accordingly. The model presented recognizesthe reality of dwindling educational dollais, the need to efficiently and effectivelyutilize resources within schools, while at the same time providing evidence to thevarious publics the schools serve that measures do exist to ensure accountability forwhat transpires in schools.

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