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Nous écouter, nous soutenir, nousapprendre : a comparative study ofpupils' perceptions of the pedagogicprocessElizabeth McNess aa University of Bristol , UKPublished online: 07 Dec 2006.
To cite this article: Elizabeth McNess (2006) Nous écouter, nous soutenir, nous apprendre : acomparative study of pupils' perceptions of the pedagogic process, Comparative Education, 42:4,517-532, DOI: 10.1080/03050060600988403
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Comparative EducationVol. 42, No. 4, November 2006, pp. 517–532
ISSN 0305-0068 (print)/ISSN 1360-0486 (online)/06/040517–16© 2006 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/03050060600988403
Nous écouter, nous soutenir, nous apprendre1: a comparative study of pupils’ perceptions of the pedagogic processElizabeth McNess*University of Bristol, UKTaylor and Francis LtdCCED_A_198741.sgm10.1080/03050060600988403Comparative Education0305-0068 (print)/1360-0486 (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis424000000November [email protected]
In many countries around the world there is a current focus on the restructuring of educationsystems in a bid to increase the quality of the educational experience for pupils in order to raise theiracademic achievement. However, the defiition of quality as expressed through policy may notalways accord with the aims and aspirations of individual teachers or, perhaps more importantly,match the constructions given to the concept of quality by pupils. The rhetoric and intent expressedin policy texts may even have the potential to restrict the quality of what teachers do and what pupilsexperience. This paper draws on the findings of the ENCOMPASS project to illustrate the conceptsof quality as expressed by the pupils themselves. It looks at what pupils in England, France andDenmark had to tell us about motivation, engagement and the conditions necessary for effectiveteaching and learning. It proposes some reflections on questions such as: What do young people seeas the purpose of schooling? What motivates young people to learn? What do young people expectfrom their teachers in order to enhance their learning?
Introduction
Education systems in Europe and beyond are currently engaged in a quest for‘quality’ and ‘effectiveness’. Such concerns have been fuelled, in part, by theincreasing influence of international comparative studies such as the Trends inInternational Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS) and the Programme forInternational Student Assessment (PISA), which focus on the outcomes of differentschooling systems for particular cohorts of children. In a market-orientated world,where Governments are keen to maximize human capital in order to gain economicadvantage, such studies are often used by policy-makers in various national settings
*Centre for International and Comparative Studies, Graduate School of Education, University ofBristol, 35 Berkeley Square, Bristol BS8 1JA, UK. Email: [email protected]
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to legitimate claims of underachievement and to justify radical changes in policy.But do such studies tell us all there is to know about teaching, learning and thepedagogic process? Is it possible that the nuances of pupil experience get over-looked in such aggregated scores of national achievement? Are there dangers inoperationalizing what has become a global rhetoric within culturally specificcontexts?
This article draws on evidence from a programme of comparative study to discusssome of the universals of pupil experience with regard to such issues as motivation,attitudes to learning, and perceptions of effective teaching. It builds on a generalconcern to allow young people increasing input into the decisions that affect theirlives, as expressed in, for example, the United Nations Charter on the Rights of theChild, together with the more specific concern, such as that expressed by theDepartment for Education and Skills in England, to democratize the educationprocess and include ‘pupil voice’ in decision-making in order to combat disaffectionand disengagement (DfES, 2004). In so doing, the article also argues for morequalitative, comparative studies to extend, enhance and explain the knowledge gainedfrom the large-scale quantitative studies, mentioned earlier, so demonstrating thevalue of comparison in drawing out both the commonalities and differences of pupilexperience, intranationally as well as internationally.
Young people’s experience
In a ‘knowledge’ driven society, European countries are putting a great deal ofresources into extending the time young people spend in education with programmesdesigned to widen access and broaden the content of education syllabuses (Greenet al., 1999). This means that more young people can expect to spend more time overa longer period in formal learning situations. It is important, therefore, to ensure thequality of these learning encounters in order to promote motivation, retain engage-ment and increase effectiveness.
However, it also appears that a sizeable, perhaps growing, number of childrencurrently approaching adolescence and young adulthood are challenging the ethos ofschools—institutions which appear, for some, to have little relevance to their dailylives and fail to recognize their individual identity and needs. For a significant minor-ity, school offers a daily reality of failure and the erosion of self-esteem as they struggleto achieve what many perceive to be the arbitrary and unobtainable goals that thesystem imposes on them (Pollard et al., 2000; Osborn et al., 2003). As a result thereis some evidence, internationally, that the reality of schooling can lack meaning andcreate alienation from the education process (Andersson, 1996; Barber, 1996;Kinder, 1997; Elliott et al., 1999). But why should this be the case? What is it aboutthe organization of schools or the performance of teachers that motivates against theinclusion of all children in the learning process? Research recognizes that theinfluences are many, and that they include a combination of both sociocultural andhome influences as well as issues to do with school structure and organization. ForKinder (1997), whose work included children’s views on reducing disaffection, issues
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of curriculum content (more interest, more practical activities, more choice, morevariety, more engagement with the real world), teacher characteristics (justice,patience, understanding, respect, humour and informality—though still able tocontrol), and school rewards and sanctions (tensions between the visual symbols ofschool authority and those of youth culture) were paramount. Hufton and Elliott(1999), in an exploration of the purposes and value of education in Sunderland,Kentucky and St Petersburg, highlight more subtle sociocultural factors at work inrelation to various pupils’ attitudes to learning. A study by Andersson (1996),followed students between the ages of 13–16 years over a three-year period and found‘many students’ who reacted negatively to school and typified them in the followingway:
They did not find school intellectually or creatively stimulating, they wished to spendmore time with practical-aesthetic subjects and school was not especially meaningful tothem. Most students (in this category) said that they were not allowed to make theirown decisions and they wished to have more responsibility. Their relations with theteachers were negative or neutral but the peers saved them from total desperation.(Andersson, 1996, p. 19)
Such studies raise questions about the extent to which a universal preoccupationwith standards and outcomes, borne out of an industrial model of schooling designedto fit successive generations of children for their role in society, is still able to performin the rapidly developing world of the twenty-first century. The current emphasis onacademic subjects, the prevalence of teacher-dominated lessons, and an authoritarianregime in which the balance of power between teachers and pupils is profoundlyunequal may contribute to this alienation. Indeed, Rudduck and Flutter (2000)suggest that ‘Teachers are very aware of the difficulties of engaging all pupils in learn-ing and know that schools have changed less in their deep structures in the last twentyto thirty years than young people have changed’ (p. 86). This is echoed by Graudenzand Randoll (1997) in a study of adolescent perceptions of their schooling inGermany and Denmark:
Processes of change are inevitable if teachers want to maintain their credibility in the eyesof the pupils. There is still too much unquestioned loyalty to traditional contents andmethods of learning, performance expectations and rules of conduct. They might haveworked for former generations, but they are not valid today. The world has changeddramatically. Growing up has new features shaped by a world of technology and individ-ualism. School, however, seems nearly oblivious to these changes. (Graundenz &Randoll, 1997, p. 198)
So what can young people tell us about what motivates them to learn? What typeof learning environment is most inclusive and how can comparative research contrib-ute to this debate?
A programme of comparative research
Comparative research has a long and distinguished history of seeking to understandeducational perspectives and practices within their specific cultural contexts, in order
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to understand more fully how learning takes place. While some researchers havecompared processes and outcomes in order to find the ‘right way’ or ‘best practice’(Reynolds & Farrell, 1996), others have been seeking to understand more fully thenuances of cultural context and the situatedness of various pedagogical approaches(Alexander, 2000).
Following in this tradition, a unique programme of comparative studies undertakenby researchers at the University of Bristol between 1984 and 2000—a time of majorpolicy change and increasing Government involvement in education—has attemptedto analyse the way in which various historical and cultural differences within thenational education systems of England, France and, more recently, Denmark haveimpacted on the decisions of policy-makers, the work of teachers, and the perceptionsof pupils (see Table 1).
These studies have built on each other, using a mixture of both qualitative andquantitative approaches, to look in a progressive way at the impact of policy changeover time. The original choice of France and England, selected to represent a focuson the centralized and universal, on the one hand, and the decentralized andindividual, on the other, was later added to by Denmark which represented a more
Table 1. A programme of ESRC-funded research
Date Project title Focus Main reference
1984–1987 Bristaix Project A comparison of French and English primary teachers’ perspective on issues of ‘accountability’ and ‘responsibility’
Broadfoot et al. (1993)
1989–1997 The Primary Assessment, Curriculum and Evaluation Project (PACE)
A longitudinal study of the impact of the 1988 Education Reform Act (England & Wales) on teachers’ work and pupil experience which compared six successive years of primary education for a single cohort of children
Osborn et al. (2000)Pollard et al. (2000)
1993 Systems, Teachers, and Educational Policy (STEP)
A comparative study of the impact of national policy changes, at the end of the 1990s, on primary teachers’ work in England and France
Broadfoot (1996)
1995–1997 Quality in Experiences of Schooling Trans-nationally (QUEST)
A comparative study of primary pupils’ perspectives, experiences and achievements in England and France
Broadfoot et al. (2000)
1998–2000 Education and National Culture: A comparative study of attitudes to secondary schooling (ENCOMPASS)
A comparative study of secondary pupils’ perspectives of schooling in England, France and Denmark, which incorporated a longitudinal investigation into a sub-sample of the PACE cohort of pupils as they moved into secondary schooling.
Osborn et al. (2003)
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communitarian and democratic approach to the purposes of schooling. For thisreason, despite a common European experience, we have argued elsewhere that,historically, these systems have represented three fundamentally different approachesto the provision of compulsory education and schooling (Osborn, 1999; McNess,2001, Osborn et al., 2003). Though similar in many respects, these national systemsdisplay differences in basic values and aims, which are themselves products of thespecific cultural and historical environments from which they spring. They are bothinformed by, and help to reproduce, the deep socio-cognitive and cultural patterningof particular nation states.
Findings from the ENCOMPASS Project2
The latest research in this series of studies, Education and National culture: aComparative Study of Attitudes to Secondary Schooling (ENCOMPASS), set out toexplore the extent to which differences in aims and organizational structure impactedon the pedagogical environment and consequent pupil experience. A central argu-ment of the research was that attention should be paid to the historical and culturalcontexts of specific national schooling systems in order to understand fully the subtledifferences in the educational aims and priorities that they display. These differences,once identified, were then used to examine the way in which the three systems (inEngland, France and Denmark) impacted differentially on the learning experience.
However, while previous publications (Osborn, 1999, 2001; Osborn et al., 2003)have focused on both the inter- and intra-national differences which the study uncov-ered, we also recognized that there were some striking similarities in the ways in whichpupils in the three countries perceived their schooling but, up until now, these havereceived less attention in our analysis. This paper, therefore, focuses on congruenceand the various ‘constants’ or universals espoused by the pupils in relation to school-ing. It draws on considerable evidence within the data that showed a remarkableagreement between pupils in all three countries in terms of why school was importantto them and what they wanted from their teachers. In essence, their construction ofwhat ‘quality’ would look like.
The research used an innovative comparative methodology that was designed tolook beyond the powerful statistics of large comparative studies carried out by theOECD and others in an effort to understand the lived experiences of pupils and theeffect such experiences had on their attitudes to teaching and learning. The methodsemployed included a questionnaire survey of nearly 1800 pupils aged between 12-and 13-years-old (approximately 600 in each country), follow-up interviews ofselected ‘target’ pupils, classroom observations, focus group discussions, teacher andhead teacher interviews, performance data and the collection of institutional andnational policy documentation. These methods are reported in more detail elsewhere(Osborn et al., 2003; Osborn, 2004). For the purposes of this article, the main find-ings are drawn from responses to the questionnaire survey, together with data fromindividual and focus group interviews with a smaller sub-sample of children withvarying levels of attainment.
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What do young people see as the purpose of schooling?
The questionnaires, which were completed anonymously in the presence of membersof the research team, asked the young people to what extent they agreed with variousstatements about the purpose of schooling. Table 2 summarizes those statementswith which there was most agreement between pupils from all three countries.
It can be seen that although most pupils had a positive orientation to school,wanting to do well, a large minority in all three countries agreed that they found theexperience ‘boring’, while relatively few considered that they were wasting their time.This conflicting response is partly explained by looking at the pupils’ responses inrelation to the purposes of schooling. They were in most agreement with regard to itsacademic utility and considered it to be a place to ‘learn about new things’ and ‘getqualifications’. Though there were some variations, pupils in all three countries alsodetected a close link between school and their future career prospects. Finally, itssocial and personal purposes in ‘learning to cooperate with others’ and develop in linewith your own ‘strengths and weaknesses’ were also clearly supported by the pupilsin all three countries. Its propensity to be ‘boring’ seemed, at least for some, to be partof a process of delayed gratification in terms of their future lives.
What motivates young people to do well at school?
The questionnaire also addressed issues of motivation and the role of assessment.The pupils were presented with a list of possible statements that described the reasonwhy they wanted ‘to do good work’. Table 3 highlights those statements with whichthere was most commonality across all three countries and suggests that, again, thereis strong agreement about what motivates them. Pupils in all three countries appearto be strongly motivated to achieve well in academic terms in order to enable them to
Table 2. Pupils’ attitudes to school and perceptions of the purposes of schooling
Strongly agree/agree (%)
England France Denmark
1. I want to do well at school 96 96 922. School is boring 36 27 363. I feel as though I’m wasting my time at school 7 13 104. An important thing about school is learning new things 95 97 945. School is the first step on the way to my career 91 85 856. An important thing about school is that it helps you to get
qualifications95 75 80
7. An important thing about school is learning to cooperate with others 84 78 918. School makes you aware of your own strengths and weaknesses 79 86 789. School is about getting jobs when you leave 70 84 75
Totals n = 577 444 610
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get a good job, but more immediately to get good marks. Interest in the subject and,to a lesser degree, a desire to please parents were also important motivators. Themajority of pupils in all three countries also wanted to ‘go on learning as long as I can’,though there is little support for peer competition being a motivating factor.
Strong similarities also emerged between pupils in the three countries in relation toassessment. For all three groups, four clear factors emerged in the clustering ofresponses to statements about the assessment practices in each of the countries.These included:
● the potentially de-motivating aspects of assessment for some pupils who agreed withsuch statements as: ‘I don’t really care about marks or grades’; ‘A bad mark makesme feel like not trying anymore’; ‘I don’t get enough guidance on how to improvemy work’; ‘I don’t always agree with the mark I get’.
Interview data from the sub-sample of pupils elaborated on this. A Danish pupilexpressed the feelings common to some pupils in all three countries in the followingway, ‘If you keep being told that you cannot do this or that, you don’t learn anything’.Another said, ‘But of course it strengthens your self-confidence to get good marks—and those who don’t, get used to not getting high marks’. There was also a sense thatthe marks awarded in summative assessment only told part of the story; as one Danishpupil put it, ‘Marks do not show your creativity and the subjects don’t cover the variousaspects you might be good at’. A French pupil drew attention to the need for under-standing of the subject matter rather than high marks ‘Le plus important c’est pas la notec’est de comprendre’ [‘The most important thing is not the mark but the understanding’].
● The general concern with the social and personal aspects of assessment, whichincluded agreement with such statements as: ‘I find it embarrassing when teacherspoint out that my work is wrong in front of the class’; ‘I find it embarrassing whenteachers praise my work in front of the class’; ‘Sometimes I feel worried when theteachers give me back my work’.
Table 3. Motivational factors
Strongly agree/agree (%)
England France Denmark
When I want to do good work it’s because:1. It will help me get a good job 97 91 922. It’s important for me to do well 95 97 903. I want to get a good mark 94 93 894. I’m interested in the subject 83 81 755. It’s important to my parents 69 77 666. I’d like to go on learning as long as I can 65 74 717. It will make me popular with my friends 13 27 11
Totals n = 577 444 610
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Interview data, again, illustrated these issues. As one French pupil put it, ‘Ce qui estpire encore c’est quand tu as vraiment une mauvaise note et les autres te regardent de traversquoi’ [‘What is worst is when you get a really bad mark and the others look across atyou’]. A Danish pupil considered that ‘those [teachers] who decisively judge by marksare those who do not know the pupils in other ways’.
● The positive role of formative assessment, which included agreement with suchstatements as: ‘When I get work back the comments show me what I have to do toimprove’; ‘When I get a bad mark it makes me try harder in the future’.
Finally:
● A positive orientation to assessment of their work by their teachers, which includedagreement with such statements as: ‘I enjoy trying to do better than I did last time’;‘I like knowing what marks or grades I’ve got’; ‘I like to know how well I’m doingin my work’; ‘Usually I like it when teachers give me back my work’.
The extent to which there was cross-cultural agreement from the pupils can be seenin more detail in Table 4.
What are the elements that create an environment conducive to learning?
In response to various statements about the way they learnt, pupils in England,France and Denmark were in considerable agreement over what constituted an effec-tive teaching and learning environment. Table 5 again focuses on those statementswhere there was most agreement.
In interview the pupils repeated aspects of these three essential elements: that thecontent should be ‘interesting’ and relate to their life experiences; that the process oflearning should be active and collaborative; and that it should take place in a sociallycomfortable and supportive environment.
Table 4. The impact of assessment on pupils’ motivation
Strongly agree/agree (%)
England France Denmark
What do you think about the marking of your work?1. I enjoy trying to do better than I did last time 83 90 842. I like knowing what marks or grade I’ve got 88 91 893. I like to know how well I’m doing in my work 84 85 944. Usually I like it when teachers give me back my work 76 80 755. When I get my work back the comments show me what I have to do to improve
70 81 68
6. When I get a bad mark it makes me try harder in the future 70 74 787. I don’t always agree with the mark 72 71 71
Totals n = 577 444 610
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‘Interesting’ was defined in all three countries as a lesson that had an element offun or humour. As one French pupil put it, ‘Monsieur Giroud est rigolo tandis que MadameBonnard…elle reconte, elle reconte, elle dicte, elle dicte’ [‘Mr Giroud is funny whereas MrsBonnard goes on and on and on, she endlessly dictates’]. And again, ‘C’est endormant,c’est toujours “ha hein ha hein ha hein ha hein”. On dirait qu’ils rabâchent toujours les mêmeschoses, c’est sur le meme ton, toujours monotone’ [‘It puts you to sleep, it’s always blaablaa blaa. They always seem to go over the same things, with the same monotonoustone of voice’]. A Danish pupil suggested that, ‘You learn more if the teaching is fun… if it is only theory and theorizing in the end you don’t bother any longer’.
Pupils in all three countries appreciated teachers who, ‘have a laugh’, ‘can make ajoke’, ‘liven it up’. In the event of the teacher not being able to fulfil these conditionsit was pupils who provided the interest. As a French girl explained, ‘Dans le cours il ya toujours quelqu’un là pour metre de l’ambiance’ [‘There’s always someone in the lessonwho’ll make it interesting’], and that role was often occupied by a boy. Pupils fromthe three countries also thought that they learnt more when teachers brought inthemes from contemporary life.
‘Interesting’ also implied that the pupils should be active: ‘doing something’ andthat there should be a variety of learning opportunities. They liked active learning towhich they had to contribute, such as, ‘writing a report and presenting it [to the class]… you learn something about yourself as well as what you find [the results] … youcan see your own progress’ (Danish pupil). Or again, ‘We learn when we are to presentsomething and we have had time to prepare in groups of two or three [pupils]’. AFrench pupil put it like this, ‘Si on faisait que parler et copier sur le cahier personneapprendrait’ [‘If all that happened was (the teacher) talking and us copying it down,no-one would learn anything’]. Again, an English pupil had the same sentiment,‘mixing the dry reading stuff with a film and the like … makes you feel more engaged’.Pupils from all three countries decried teacher monologues and copying from
Table 5. Pupils’ perceptions of learning
Strongly agree/agree (%)
England France Denmark
What do you think about how you learn?1. I learn better from teachers who make the work interesting 95 88 922. Being good at something doesn’t mean that you enjoy it 79 85 703. I learn better when I know it will be useful to me 79 74 704. You have to be happy at school before you can do well 65 77 645. I learn a lot from studying on my own 62 64 676. It is important to have a teacher who knows you well 64 61 637. I learn better when I work with others 68 59 578. I learn better when the teacher uses ideas and experiences I am familiar with from outside school
68 50 64
Totals n = 577 444 610
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textbooks or the blackboard. A Danish pupil defined a boring lesson as one where youare, ‘reading on your own, the teacher telling you about the next section [for the nextlesson] or a lot of papers [worksheets] to fill in while he [the teacher] talks a lot’.
Finally, security was a strong theme. Pupils had to feel safe in a learning environ-ment where there was mutual respect between the pupils, ‘where you don’t rubbishone another, you listen to what the other tells you, you should be able to share ideaswithout quarrelling’ (a Danish pupil), as well as between the teacher and the pupilswho should, ‘Listen and appreciate all pupils’ comments and treat everyone withequal respect as they would treat anyone else. Not have favourites and not be hard onsomeone who is struggling’ (an English pupil).
What makes a good teacher?
Finally, within the questionnaire, pupils were asked to choose the three most impor-tant things they thought that a teacher should do from a list of eleven suggestions.Table 6, below, lists the statements in order of their importance as defined by thepupils’ responses.
Pupils from all three countries agreed on the three most important attributes theywanted their teachers to have. They wanted their teachers to be fair, to explain thingswell and to make work ‘interesting’. These sentiments, together with the need for teach-ers to have a good relationship with their pupils by trying to understand their livesoutside school and listening to what they have to say, were repeated over and overagain in both individual and group interviews, as well as responses to an open-endedquestion on the questionnaires. When asked to complete the sentence, ‘A goodteacher should …’ they responded in strikingly similar ways. Representative responsesfrom the three nationalities are listed below:
Table 6. What pupils want from their teachers (the pupils were asked to choose only three ‘things’)
% choosing each statement
England France Denmark
What are the three most important things that a teacher should do?1. Be fair 55 50 662. Explain things well 53 57 643. Make work interesting 39 50 574. Be friendly 36 37 335. Give extra help to pupils who find things difficult 20 33 376. Provide helpful guidance to pupils on how to improve their work 22 18 297. Give pupils some say in what they do 19 20 248. Try to understand how pupils feel 18 18 249. Encourage pupils to ask questions 10 11 1110. Make children work hard 8 19 911. Be strict 8 6 5
Totals n = 577 444 610
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For pupils in England, a good teacher should …
… know what she’s talking about and make work fun. Someone who understands you andcan boost your confidence, who doesn’t shout a lot, friendly and doesn’t mind helping you.
… help and be interested in the work you are doing. Help if you are stuck. Listen to prob-lems you may have at school or home. Teach in different ways with more fun included tomake the subject more interesting.
… explain work carefully. Try to make things fun. Should not expect things to be learnedquickly. Listen and help when you have problems.
… be helpful, kind, understanding. Make the work interesting. Be fair. Explain thingsclearly. Listen to what we have to say and our ideas and try to understand us.
For pupils in Denmark, a good teacher should …
… though not a friend, be someone who knows something about you, who you feel goodwith … if you have another teacher whom you don’t like it can spoil the learning.
… understand me, come up with new creative ideas, do something different than what isshown in the textbooks, know me.
… not scream at the pupils who don’t listen. Then they learn nothing and they are the oneswho need help.
… make work interesting and exciting and discuss with the class so we hear each others’opinions.
… make the classes interesting or funny so you like to attend.
… be open to other teaching methods, give students breaks once in a while, make learninginteresting, let the students work in groups.
… be creative and make things funny to work with.
And, finally, for pupils in France, a good teacher should …
… savoir écouter les élèves, les aider, bien expliquer, ne pas faire de preference … [Know how tolisten to pupils, help them, explain well, not have favourites …]
… bien expliquer les choses que nous comprenons pas. Normalement un bon professeur doit toujoursêtre là pour t’aider, car si non on ne pourra jamais progresser. [Explain well the things that wedon’t understand. Normally a good teacher should always be there to help you, if not youwon’t be able to progress.]
… juste, comprehensible, doit bien expliquer, render le travail intéressant, donner la voix auxélèves, donner de l’aide aux élèves en difficulté, donner aux élèves le moyen de bien travailler.[Fair, understandable, good at explaining, make the work interesting, let the pupils have asay, help pupils in difficulty, give pupils the means to do good work.]
… écouter les élèves et reexpliquer quand on ne comprend pas. [Listen to the pupils and explainagain when we don’t understand.]
… nous écouter, nous soutenir, nous apprendre. Il devrait aussi ne pas faire de preference. [Listento us, support us, teach us. They should not have favourites.]
This last quote—Listen to us, support us, teach us—sums up neatly the three mainthemes which have emerged, not only from the latest ENCOMPASS study, but also
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from previous studies in the programme. It can be argued that it is the quality of thesethree dimensions—relationships, pedagogy (teaching methods and associated assess-ment procedures), and curriculum content—which enables teachers to create thesupportive and inclusive environment necessary for learning. Interestingly, theyreflect the three areas of practice associated with effective teaching in the studycarried out by Hay McBer (DfEE, 2000) in England: classroom climate, professionalskills and teaching skills.
Discussion
Thus, in terms of pupils’ own perceptions of effective teaching and learning there wasa striking unanimity in terms of the purpose of schooling, the impact of assessmenton motivation and learner engagement, the definition of an ‘interesting’ lesson, andthe approach which they expected their teachers to take in creating a quality learningenvironment. These perceptions included:
● the importance of the economic function of education and its link to the jobmarket;
● the importance of the social aspect of learning, which included the creation of anequitable and ‘fair’ environment of mutual respect between teachers and pupils,which enabled pupils to have an input into the process of their learning;
● the positive effects of formative assessment, as well as the potential for demotivationand disengagement in more formal, summative assessment situations; and finally,
● the use of active and collaborative learning situations which included an elementof ‘fun’ or humour, where teachers created interesting work, explained things welland ensured some concrete link to their lived experience.
Similar dimensions of quality learning have been identified by studies of studentsin other contexts. Graudenz and Randoll (1997), for example, found that the Danishand German secondary students whom they studied complained that ‘practicalknowledge’ was being neglected in favour of ‘theoretic knowledge’ and that learningwas ‘particularly attractive’ when ‘they themselves can shape the learning process andexperience learning as personally relevant and meaningful’ (p. 198). The importanceof supportive relationships and classroom climate were identified in a recent study ofyoung adolescents in the US (Ryan & Patrick, 2001). Four key factors were perceivedby students to be conducive to engagement and motivation—a perception of theteacher as being supportive; opportunities to learn interactively and collaboratively;the creation of a climate of mutual respect and encouragement; and the down-playingof competition. Students’ perception of a positive learning environment wasexpressed in the following way:
When students believe they are encouraged to know, interact with, and help classmatesduring lessons; when they view their classroom as one where students and their ideas arerespected and not belittled; when students perceive their teachers as understanding andsupportive; and when they feel their teacher does not publicly identify students’ relativeperformance. (Ryan & Patrick, 2001, p. 456)
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Further insights into what seem likely to be the international constants ofconducive learning settings are provided by Csikszentmihalyi et al. (1993) in theirwork on creative ‘flow’. They have argued that students who learn most effectivelyare those who are able to achieve a synergy between momentary involvement andlong-term goals. This is most likely to be achieved in classrooms that are self-rewarding and in which the competitive pressures are kept to a minimum. Similarfindings have been reported by Kaplan et al. (2002) and Harlen and Deakin Crick(2003).
Such evidence challenges school systems that were largely designed in the nine-teenth century to incorporate pedagogical ideas more appropriate for the twenty-firstcentury. Graudenz and Randoll (1997) call for a reduction in the gap between whatthey refer to as ‘schools for learning’ and ‘schools for living’ so that a culture oflearning is created which directly links to pupils’ daily lives. They go on to elaboratethis in terms of teachers being able to:
… learn to search, plan and interpret with the pupils to really represent the offers andopportunities of school. Increased cooperation with the pupils is a necessity; school learn-ing should be transformed into a personal challenge to the pupils. Teachers should lendan ear to the pupils’ concerns and interests and be aware of their potential for contributingto the learning process. (Grandenz & Randoll, 1997, p. 200)
Such an approach would allow pupils to have more influence over what and howthey learn, enabling them to engage in ‘self-regulated learning’ rather than ‘learningby instruction’, and recognize that the process was at least as important as the content.It would also suggest a demand for multidisciplinary learning, which promotes theidea of interconnections and thinking in networks.
Research also suggests that teachers, too, identify these dimensions as central foreffective student engagement in learning. Hufton and Elliott (2000) document anumber of international constants relating to teachers’ beliefs about student motiva-tion, including the duration, depth and quality of relationships between the teacher,pupil and parent, and the extent and nature of the pedagogical deployment of assess-ment. More importantly, evidence also suggests that tensions can arise for teachersbetween their own professional values and engagement with the affective dimensionof learning, and the imposition of policy-driven, didactic approaches to learning(Osborn et al., 2000; McNess, 2004; Osborn & McNess, 2005) which can cause themto, ‘fall back on the role of instructors who impart isolated knowledge, often regardingtheir pupils as spanners in their pedagogical works’ (Graudenz & Randoll, 1997,p. 200).
Yet these ideas are neither new nor revolutionary. A child-centred or child-focusedapproach to learning, which is fun and practically-based, goes back to Rousseau andbeyond. An approach which would seem to by supported by current national policyinitiatives in the three countries, such as the Loi de l’Orientation3 (1989) in France,the new Act of the Folkeskole (1992) in Denmark, and the ‘personalized learning’agenda in England, all of which emphasize the need for differentiated learning whichoffers a more flexible and individualized learning context, maximizing the relevanceand effectiveness for all. It is often other structures, pressures and unintended policy
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outcomes that make it difficult for teachers to focus on the individual and the imme-diate. For young people, it is important that schooling is seen as part of the here andnow and not a discrete, limited, disconnected and isolated period which has to beendured before ‘real life’ begins. Perhaps schools, rather than being regarded asproducers of a product to be released into the market place, need to draw on the olderDanish concept of folkeoplusning, or ‘popular enlightenment’, to re-focus their workon the individual context. Schooling would then be regarded as part of a much widerand all encompassing approach to learning that is connected to the community andcontinues through life. Rather than being seen as discrete and linear, learning wouldthen be reconceptualized as episodic and cyclical, connected very directly to thecurrent circumstances of the learner.
Conclusion
As well as economic and social change, the information revolution, coupled withmajor changes in the labour market, require traditional institutional structures tobecome more flexible and elastic in order to provide for the development of the skillsand attitudes that will be needed if learning is to become sufficiently responsive. Atthe same time, the erosion of value-consensus and a growing cultural diversity withinindustrialized societies is re-emphasizing the role of educational institutions as amechanism for social integration and control. Such a context throws into relief atension in the balance between the academic and the more affective, or personal andsocial, role of schooling, which continues to exercise both teachers and educationpolicy-makers (McNess et al., 2003).
The clearest message from this study is the need to pay attention to the evidencefrom numerous international studies about the factors that contribute positively tolearning, to be willing to abandon familiar conceptions of teaching and learning andinstead to recognize that quality learning appears to happen when students are activeand involved with both peers and teacher. To recognize that student agency is crucialin sustaining motivation and ‘flow’ and that this depends directly on the quality ofrelationships both in the classroom and outside, as learning is strongly affected bysocial and emotional factors. Not only do such factors affect individual learningcareers in crucial ways, they are also highly significant in creating a communityculture that helps or hinders the job of schools.
In a situation in which young people around the world are expected to spend longerand longer in institutions that some find unfulfilling, such findings represent a chal-lenge to all those engaged in the educational project to consider at the most funda-mental level the long established assumptions about what quality education looks likeand how it is best delivered: Listen to us, support us, teach us.
Finally, while recognizing the existence of a substantial body of evidence thatconfirms the ENCOMPASS findings that culturally derived differences in educa-tional expectations and practices lead to significant variations in pupils’ learningexperiences, it would also seem appropriate to argue that there are meta-narrativesabout learning that are valid beyond the confines of particular cultures. Comparative
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Pupils’ perceptions of the pedagogic process 531
researchers have a role to play in bringing these to the attention of policy-makerswho have their eyes more clearly focused on international difference and competi-tion.
Acknowledgement
The ENCOMPASS Project was funded by the ESRC from 1998–2000 and includedthe following collaborators: Marilyn Osborn, Patricia Broadfoot, Elizabeth McNess,Claire Planel, Pat Triggs (University of Bristol), Birte Ravn and Thyge Winther-Jensen(The Danish University of Education), and Olivier Cousin (CADIS, University ofBordeaux 11).
Notes
1. ‘Nous écouter, nous soutenir, nous apprendre’ translates as ‘Listen to us, support us, teach us’.2. This paper is based largely on the findings of an ESRC-funded project (Education and
National Culture: A Comparative Study of Pupil Attitudes to Secondary Schooling). ESRC’ssupport for this work is gratefully acknowledged.
3. The Loi de l’Orientation is the law that requires schools in France to give guidance and adviceto students in choosing various academic pathways.
Notes on contributor
Elizabeth McNess is a senior lecturer in education at the University of BristolGraduate School of Education. She is currently joint-coordinator of theResearch Centre for International and Comparative Studies and secretary of theBritish Association of International and Comparative Education (BAICE). Herresearch interests include the impact of national policy on teachers’ work and theinfluence of history and culture on the structure of schooling and the experiencesof pupils.
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