Rethinking the relationship between research and practice in teaching

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RETHINKING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RESEARCH AND PRACTICE IN TEACHING

ALAN R. TOM

Washington University, St Louis, USA

Abstract-The paper examines the relationship between contemporary research on teaching and teaching practice, including the varied reasons educators give for the weak relationship, several questionable assumptions researchers share about the linkage between research and practice. and researchers’ implicit view that teaching is an applied science. As an alternative to the applied science conception. the author proposes teaching be viewed as a moral craft. In comparison to the applied science conception, the moral craft perspective engenders a more holistic view of teaching, leads to a stronger link between research on teaching and teaching practice, and decreases the likelihood that research on teaching will mask normative issues fundamental to teaching practice.

The relationship between research on teaching and the professional education of teachers is much debated. Researchers lament that their scholarship does not have more impact on teacher educators. Teacher educators complain that few research results are applicable to the teacher education curriculum. Teachers in training - and practicing teachers as well - show little interest in the findings of researchers or the adaptations by teacher educators of the findings. Not surprisingly, both researchers and teacher educators spend considerable time attempting to explain the weak link between inquiry into teaching and teaching practice.

The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I want to examine the relationship between contemporary research on teaching and teaching practice, including the reasons educators give for the weak relationship, the assumptions researchers share about the linkage between research and practice, and researchers’ implicit view that teaching is an applied science. The purpose of examining the research-practice link is to illuminate how this relationship is con- strued by researchers and to highlight certain researcher assumptions of questionable valid-

ity. The second purpose of the paper is to pre- sent an alternative to the applied science view of teaching - teaching as a moral craft - and to discuss several examples of research grounded in this conception of teaching. The paper, therefore, is in part a critique of the dominant applied science approach to connecting research on teaching and professional training and in part a proposal for a new way of conceiving of this relationship, that is, teaching as a moral craft.

Research and Practice: The Current Scene

Though there is no compelling reason to adopt a narrow definition of what counts as research on teaching, I do recognize that such research has often been associated with correlational and experimental studies modeled after research in psychology. My discussion of contemporary research on teaching, therefore, assumes that the core of this research falls in the correlational and experimental traditions, reflecting either a process-product orientation or an aptitude-treatment perspective (Bellack,

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1981; Gage & Giaconia, 1981; Snow, 1977). It is important to remember, however, that research on teaching can refer to a variety of other styles of inquiry, including ethnography, descriptive study, cognitive information processing, phenomenology, conceptual analysis, historical study (Bellack, 1981; Best, 1983; Clark, 1979; Scheffler, 1960; Soltis, 1978). While these varied forms of inquiry do directly involve the study of teaching, this field has historically been dominated by correlational and experimental approaches, a fact which has had major impact on the way researchers believe their efforts ought to be related to practice.

The Weak Link Between Research and Practice

A wide variety of scholars and practitioners believe that there has not been a strong enough link between research on teaching and teaching practice. However, the reason for this fragile connection is a point of dispute. The problem is variously attributed to weaknesses in research technique, to a focus on the wrong research problems, to fundamental perceptual differences between teachers and researchers, or to inadequate attention to the process of bridging between research and practice. In turn, each of these four interpretations of the problem is summarized and analyzed, with special attention being given to a typical example of each interpretation.

First let us examine the idea that weaknesses in research technique account for the inconclusive relationship between research and practice. A widely shared belief among researchers on teaching is that “extremely important problems hamper the study of teachers and teaching” and that “it will take years before these problems can even be understood well enough to do classroom research properly” (Berliner, 1976, p. 370). Berliner identifies these problems as involving instrumentation, methodology, and statistics. For example, typical instrumentation issues concern the use of standardized tests as outcome measures, the need for developing multivariate outcome measures, difficulties in determining the unit of analysis for an indepen- dent variable. Problems at a similar level of

specificity, according to Berliner, exist in the areas of methodology and statistics. Literally hundreds of researchers have listed similar technical difficulties in conducting research on effective teaching, though Berliner’s account is unusually thorough and thoughtful.

What these accounts of technical problems share is the assumption that research on teaching is on the right track and that all that is required is a sharpening of the researchers’ basic tools. If we do not yet have the desired knowledge of teaching effectiveness, the cause is not that teaching phenomena are intractable or that our research style is inappropriate to these phenomena but rather that our social and behavioral science research techniques are young and in need of continual refinement. Eventually we will develop an understanding of the fundamental regularities of teaching.

In contrast to the optimistic view that conventional social and behavioral science will ulti- mately yield knowledge useful to practitioners, a second group of educators believes that the disjunction between research and practice is traceable to the nature of the research questions. Questions posed by researchers fre- quently are not relevant to the concerns of teachers; thus, teachers tend to view research knowledge as “lacking in practicality and inconsistent with classroom realities” (Huling, Trang, & Correll, 1981, p. 13). Knowledge derived from research on teaching often answers questions that teachers are not asking.

One way to narrow the gap between the concerns of the researcher and those of the practitioner is to equalize the power of the two roles in determining research questions. So-called Interactive Research and Development is a strategy which brings together classroom teachers, university researchers, and others to study a question of interest to the teachers on the team (Huling &Johnson, 1983). Moreover, there is collaborative planning for the dissemination of the findings “so that the persons who are to be most affected by change can participate in every phase of the change” (Huling, Trang, & Correll, 1981, p. 14).

A third attempt to account for the weak link between contemporary research on teaching

and teaching practice attributes the problem to findings are linked to teaching practice. fundamental perceptual differences between Fenstermacher (1982) refers to this linking pro- researchers and teachers. The major reason for cess as bridging, which he defines as “what one research’s lack of impact on practice is that does when bringing completed or near-com- “most such research . . . construes teaching pleted educational research to bear on educa- from a theoretical perspective that is incompat- tional practice - be this practice that of ible with the perspective teachers must employ policymaking, decisionmaking, or classroom in thinking about their work” (Bolster, 1983, p. behavior” (p. 7). According to Fenstermacher, 295). Bolster observes that teachers continually bridging between research results and teaching function as situational decision-makers and that practice can be done in one of three ways: rules, the knowledge they derive from this orientation evidence, or schemata. One approach is to con- is particularistic in character and validated prag- vert the findings of research into rules govern- matically. On the other hand, researchers who ing the practice of teaching. A second alterna- pursue conventional styles of inquiry pursue tive is to use research results as evidence for knowledge which is universalistic in character testing empirical beliefs that teachers hold and validated through the canons of experimen- about various aspects of their work. Lastly, tal science. Moreover, these researchers tend to findings from research can be used as schemata view teaching influence as flowing from teacher (concepts or conceptual frameworks) by which to student while classroom teachers see teach- teachers can see their instructional activities in ing as a reflexive activity in which students are new and more complex ways. both the creators and the products of the teach- Fenstermacher (1982) makes it clear that he ing environment. has reservations about rule making, partly

Bolster believes that research cannot have a because the findings on which a rule is based can significant impact on classroom practices unless be misinterpreted, overgeneralized, or incon- it is consistent with the teacher’s particularistic clusive (Stow, 1979), and partly because bridg- and reflexive view of teaching. He advocates a ing with a rule implicitly treats the teacher as if mixture of an ethnographic and a symbolic he* were a robot. On the other hand, bridging interactionist approach because this amalgam with evidence conveys to the teacher exactly assumes that human activity is reflexive and that what researchers have learned from their the goal of research is not to generate universal studies, with the teacher’s only obligation being statements which predict teacher effectiveness to use the findings to clarify and assess his but instead to interpret how a particular class- beliefs about teaching. Thus, bridging with evi- room works. The key to engendering prac- dence assumes the teacher to be a thinking, titioner interest in research on teaching, there- reasoning person. An even more desirable fore, is to reorient this research toward context approach to bridging is the use of schemata and meaning and to abandon the search for reg- because such concepts or conceptual schemes ularities which might hold true across class- help us interpret the meaning of our experience rooms, school districts, or even nations. The in increasingly sophisticated ways. Fenster- secret of increasing the impact of research on macher cites such concepts as allocated time, practice is for researchers to adopt a new engaged time, or academic learning time for research paradigm that Bolster labels as a their potential utility in better understanding “sociolinguistic, ethnomethodological model of the temporal dimension of teacher-student research” (p. 305). interaction. Such expanding and deepening of

A fourth explanation of the weak tie between our knowledge, according to Fenstermacher , research and practice grounds the problem in are the essence of education, regardless of our inattention to the process by which research whether we are talking about the education of

Relationship between Research and Practice in Teaching 131

* Rather than employ such awkward phrases as “his or her” or “s/he.” I have used masculine pronouns to refer to both gen- ders.

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youngsters or the education of teachers. The four alternative explanations for the

weak link between research on teaching and teaching practice seem to be dramatically different from one another. Those who trace the problems to deficiencies in research technique believe that the major problem is rooted in the relatively recent origin of the behavioral and social sciences. As more researchers become interested in the study of teaching, there will be a steady increase in the sophistication of social scientific research techniques and a gradual increase in our knowledge about effective teaching and potent teacher education cur- ricula. In contrast, another group sees no chance of developing a potent knowledge base until teachers turn researchers away from the latter’s tendency to ask impractical, even irrelevant, questions. The key is for teachers to direct researchers toward the conduct of useful inquiry. A third school of thought also sees a gulf between the perceptions of teachers and researchers but believes this discontinuity can be overcome if researchers would adopt a particular style of inquiry. Lastly, a fourth perspective construes many of our research-practice dilemmas as rooted in our inattention to the various ways in which research findings can be related or bridged to teaching practice.

Besides these four explanations of the research-practice disjunction there are other interpretations. Some believe that practitioners deliberately avoid employing available and relevant knowledge. Others argue that there is no substantial knowledge base about teaching, nor is any such knowledge base likely to be developed (e.g., Sanders, 1978; Tom, 1980, 1984a). These and other interpretations- none of them elaborated here -seem to magnify the diversity of explanations. However, most explanations of the weak link between research and practice do share several underlying characteristics, a claim which I now want to assess.

Characteristics Which Limit the Tie Between Research and Practice

It seems strange to assert that the widely divergent interpretations of the weak impact of

research on practice share certain underlying characteristics. However, cutting across the four interpretations elaborated earlier are two assumptions: the research-practice connection ought to be a one-way relationship, and priority ought to be given to the products of research - that is, knowledge - as one relates research to practice. Both of these underlying characteristics are discussed in detail, both to substantiate their existence and to analyze the ways in which these assumptions limit the capacity of research to guide or inform practice.

The way we use the terms research and practice implies that the flow of influence is seen as moving from research to practice. We talk of converting research into practice, of increasing the impact of research on practice, of improving the quality of practice through the application of research findings. On the other hand, we do not talk about using practice to inform our research or employing the latest practices to bring our research up to date. There is a bias in our thinking toward seeing research as a source of influence and practice as a recipient of that influence.

The same one-way flow of influence is implicit in most of the four interpretations, even though these explanations identify rather different reasons for the weak link between research and practice. Certainly, those who trace the obstacle to difficulties in research technique are assuming that the key to improved practice is the generation of research findings about effective teaching. Through a two-step process, this knowledge can lead to improved teaching practice. First, researchers discover the teaching behaviors or methods which effectively produce valued kinds of student knowledge and attitudes. Then an attempt is made to identify an efficient teacher education curriculum for training teachers to master these validated teaching behaviors or methods. After discovering the teacher education curriculum which effectively produces the teacher behaviors or methods which in turn yield desired student learnings, we have research findings which can increase the scientific basis of the art of teaching practice (Gage, 1978). Thus it is research which should influence prac-


tice. Also emphasizing the one-way impact of

research on practice are those who believe that standard educational research is rooted in theoretical orientations inconsistent with the particularistic and pragmatic perspectives of teachers. Bolster (1983), for example, is quite critical of conventional educational research but does not question the primacy of research over practice:

The minima1 effect that university-sponsored research has had on classroom practice is itself a forceful argument that our traditional modes of inquiry are inappropriate to the production of knowledge that teachers will believe in and use. If we wish to achieve that knowledge, we must first rephrase our questions to ask what teachers genuinely need to know. But we must also be sure that our search for answers retains the systematic rigor that only careful scholarship can bring to the understanding of everyday affairs. (p. 308)

Practice may be the source of the teacher’s particularistic and pragmatic perspective, but practice remains an object to be modified, even fun- damentally changed, by the efforts of scholars who approach practice from the outside. With minor exceptions, the above analysis of the primacy of research over practice holds true for those who advocate having teachers involved in research teams. While teachers are to select the problems to be studied, the emphasis is on generating and disseminating research findings to improve classroom practice (Huling & Johnson. 1983).

One potential exception to the one-way flow of influence occurs when bridging focuses on schemata. Though bridging with schemata often is designed to transfer knowledge obtained from research to the practitioner, this direction for influence is not so much inevitable as it is the product of our tendency to ask how research can affect practice:

If the larger picture were the concern of this article. it would not be necessary to depict knowledge and understanding as flowing only from researcher to practitioner. The researcher has much to learn from the exnerience. insiehts. and

reflections of the practitioner. (Fenstermacher, 1982, p. 11)

Researchers on teaching, however, are not prone to take seriously the experience, insights, and reflections of teachers, except as raw data to be subjected to the analytic procedures and perspectives of social and behavioral science. This fundamental commitment to the principles of disciplinary inquiry is characteristic not only of standard educational research but also of alternative research approaches (Bellack, 1981; Bolster, 1983; Fisher & Berliner, 1979).

Some may believe I have belabored the point that the research-practice connection is a one- way relationship. After all, is it not reasonable to presume that research, representing the scientific perspective, ought to be the source of influence while teaching practice, representing the accumulated wisdom of practitioners, ought to be the recipient of that influence? While this flow of influence does seem natural, contemporary research on teaching has several attributes which limit its utility as a source of insight and wisdom for teaching practice. In the next few paragraphs, I briefly discuss two of these restrictive attributes: the propensity for research to yield numerous isolated findings and the tendency for research to stress analysis at the expense of synthesis. Both of these attributes are rooted in the specialized nature of contemporary research, including research on teaching (Maxwell, 1980).

Contemporary research on teaching is predominantly aimed at segmenting the teaching- learning process and exploring the intricacies of relatively small aspects of this process. There is a persisting attempt to narrow the problem under study. Sometimes this narrowing occurs by refining hypotheses; sometimes by clarifying and sharpening the questions to be explored through ethnography or historical study; sometimes by devoting entire books to analyzing a single educational idea or a particular aspect of the instructional process, e.g., discipline, moti- vation, or objectives. In any case, contemporary educational scholars value focus and preci- sion in the problems formulated to guide their inauirv.

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Another way to narrow inquirv is to restrict the terrain to -be addressed. ‘Behaviorists, for example, want to define thinking as outside the realm of legitimate inquiry. Behaviorists and others who employ conventional research methodologies exclude normative issues from systematic study. Some disciplines focus on person-to-person interaction; other disciplines are predominantly concerned with the context of this interaction. This listing of the ways methodological and disciplinary terrain is restricted could proceed at considerable length, but enumerating the varieties of constraint is less important than establishing that territorial constraint is a widespread pattern.

By restricting the terrain of inquiry and by narrowing the questions under study, researchers collectively produce thousands of findings. Since these findings are generated through narrowly focused but widely differing inquiries, they tend to be singular, that is, isolated from one another (Maxwell, 1980, pp. W-56). The practitioner is overpowered by the multiplicity and fragmentation of research results and has difficulty becoming familiar with these varied findings, let alone figuring out how to integrate them into practice.

It is both the multiplicity and the fragmentation of research findings which pose a real difficulty for the practitioner. In contrast to the scholar’s tendency to tear things down into smaller and smaller parts, the practitioner is continually synthesizing activities to produce a teaching whole (Cohen, 1977; Kohl, 1976). The group-based nature of teaching, the necessity to motivate and instruct youngsters of varied abilities and interests, and the need to convey the underlying frameworks of subject-matters are all factors which lead the teacher toward synthetic thinking and action.

Analytically derived findings are not only hard to locate, master, and integrate into practice, but in addition these findings do not easily fit into a coherent synthetic framework. They are based on variedand often conflicting sets of theoretical assumptions, assumptions which are

at the very root of every form of specialized inquiry. The various findings are not pieces of one or two puzzles but rather are pieces-often with indeterminate borders-of many different puzzles. In short, the findings of research on teaching do not synthesize well because they have no particular relationship or connection to one another. *

Since research findings are numerous, frag- mentary, and often unrelated, the idea of the one-way research-practice connection needs to be.questioned. Indeed only if research on teaching takes practice more seriously will we be able to conduct the kind of inquiry which does have implications for teaching practice. The questions around which our inquiry needs to be organized are the fundamental problems of practice.

This is not a plea for applied as opposed to basic research or for a return to action research. There are, of course, trivial problems of practice as well as fundamental ones. It is no better for inquiry to focus on trivial issues of practice than it is for inquiry to become so highly specialized that its results are no more cohesive than a pile of marbles. In the latter part of the paper, I will discuss what questions fundamental inquiry on teaching ought to address.

Besides the assumed one-way relationship between research and practice, there is a second shared characteristic latent in the various interpretations of why research is loosely connected to practice. This characteristic involves a focus on the fruits of research; knowledge is the aspect of research which is assumed to be relevant to practice. Before commenting on the sig- nificance of this reliance on knowledge, I want to review briefly the four interpretations of the weak link between research and practice to illustrate that each of these explanations does assume knowledge to be the key to improving practice.

Researchers who see the obstacle to educational progress as residing in shortcomings with current research technique clearly believe that research-based knowledge is the key to improv-

_ Underlymg this dwussion are a number of complex philosophical and epistemological issues. These issues. as they relate to teaching and research on teaching, are discussed by me elsewhere (Tom. 1984a).


ing practice. In the same paper in which he reviewed the varied weaknesses of teacher effectiveness research technique, Berliner (1976) cautioned educators not to prematurely embrace performance-based teacher education until we establish “the existence of empirical evidence linking teacher behavior to student outcomes in classroom settings” (p. 369). Not until we have such knowledge, Berliner believed, can we take a firm position on the possibility of performance-based teacher education.

Those who want researchers to address questions more relevant to the interests of teachers also place high priority on research-based knowledge. For instance, Huling and Johnson (1983) stress the key role in Interactive Research and Development of “research findings,” both for deciding whether a particular project was successful and for disseminating this information to other people. Those, like Bols- ter (1983), who argue for a particular methodological approach to the study of teaching, also tend to see the payoff in terms of “the production of knowledge that teachers will believe in and use” (p. 308).

Researchers who contend we do not attend sufficiently to the process by which research is linked to practice also seem to concentrate on research-based knowledge. Bridging by rule making occurs “when the results of research [emphasis added] are converted to imperatives for teachers to follow” (Fenstermacher, 1982, p. 7). Moreover, bridging with evidence also involves using “the results of research” to “test the beliefs that practitioners hold about their work” (p. 8). Even bridging with schemata, where the emphasis is on seeing phenomena in new and more sophisticated ways, entails the use of concepts, the building blocks of knowledge. Examples of schemata cited by Fenster- macher include a time schema (allocated time, engaged time, academic learning time, etc.) and a teaching behaviors schema (teacher planning behaviors, interactive teaching behaviors, etc.).

Again. I do not wish to belabor a point, but research findings are not the only aspect of research that can be applied to practice. At the very end of their discussion. Huling and

Johnson (1983) noted that participating teachers may continue to use “research skills” to improve their future practice. Gage (1980) similarly noted that we can apply to practice “a set of behavioural science methods of measurement , design, observation, appraisal, and statis- tical analysis” (pp. 11-12). Huling and Johnson’s observation, however, is basically an afterthought appended to the conclusion of their article, and Gage’s comment on the rele- vance of behavioral science methods to practice is much less positive than the quotation suggests. In reality, Gage was not merely endorsing the application of behavioral science methods. He was saying that not only behavioral science methods but substantive findings as well can be applied to practice. He disagreed with those researchers who believe that inquiry should focus on the complex third-, fourth-, and even higher-order interaction effects of the variables involved in teaching practice:

In principle, this [interactive] view of teaching means that we can never have anything substantive, and the only thing that lasts beyond a given moment with its unique combination of teacher, pupil, subject matter, classroom, and time is a set of behavioural science methods. (Gage, 1980, p. 11)

One educator who did endorse the primacy of research technique in the application of research to practice was Schaefer (1967).

Though there is consensus that knowledge is the aspect of research most applicable to practice, research findings can never provide significant guidance for practice. It is not just that the knowledge relevant to a particular practice tends to be incomplete, though inconclusive findings certainly can be a justification for not adopting a particular practice. The nub of the problem, however, is the mistaken belief that epistemologically oriented theory - that is, research results - can provide an adequate justification for making decisions about practice (Tom, 1984b; van Manen, 1982).

There are at least two reasons for asserting that epistemologically oriented theory provides

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little guidance for practice. First, any implications for practice derived from epistemological theory are only loosely connected to that theory; the warrant for such a derivation comes primarily from factors outside of epistemological considerations. Second, and related to the loose tie between epistemological theory and an area of practice, is the tendency for such theory to mask normative considerations which are central to all curriculum decision making (Tom, 1984b).

The inevitably loose connection between research findings and practice and the masking effect of these findings can be demonstrated by examining the case of performance-based teacher education (PBTE). It is sensible to cau- tion teacher educators against embracing PBTE as long as we lack “empirical evidence linking teacher behavior to student outcomes” (Ber- liner, 1976, p. 369); without such evidence, the entire rationale for PBTE is destroyed (Gage & Giaconia, 1981, p. 2; Medley, 1977, pp. 5-6). However, the development of evidence linking teacher behavior and student learning would do little to guide our efforts in designing a teacher education program. For example, just because we discover the “secret” teacher behaviors which produce obedient and respectful students does not mean that prospective teachers ought to be taught these behaviors and that teacher educators need to design programs for effectively accomplishing this goal. The key, of course, is whether our goal is to produce obedient and respectful students or whether we have some other goal.

Researchers often do acknowledge the central role of the worthiness of goals to the guidance of practice: “In strict logic,” noted Gage and Giaconia (1981, p. 2), “teacher education should have among its objectives a set of teaching practices that are known to be related causally to desirable [emphasis added] educational outcomes.” That is, having knowledge about the causal relationship of teaching practices and student outcomes is not particularly useful unless the outcomes are important ones. It is the worthiness of student outcomes which guides the practice of teacher education, not the knowledge of causal links between teaching

behaviors and student outcomes. Not only is knowledge of causal links between

teaching behaviors and student outcomes of limited utility in guiding teacher education curriculum making, but in addition this very knowledge can mask the normative considerations which are central to teacher education curriculum decisions. Why is it that we so rarely ask whether the goals to be achieved by students are important ones? It is, I contend, because we are so fixated on establishing which teaching practices are effective and which ones are ineffec- tive. The emphasis we place on the effectiveness of practices has the effect of diverting our attention from the more fundamental question of the value of outcomes which might be associated with these practices (Tom, 1984b).

The loose connection between research findings and practice and the tendency of such findings to mask the fundamental normative issues involved in teacher education curriculum making means that research findings cannot provide significant guidance for practice. At best, these findings can either expose faulty beliefs or provide schemata for viewing educational phenomena in new and more sophisticated ways. However, since “findings” are a question of epistemology, they lack the ability to raise normative considerations. Any bridging we might do with knowledge is restricted to the empirical component of practice. Relying on knowledge, therefore, is a poor way of relating research and practice.

Earlier in this section we also saw that conceiving the flow of influence as moving from research to practice is another questionable assumption. The findings of contemporary research on teaching are numerous, fragmented, and often unrelated to one another. The findings not only do not fit into a framework, but in addition they lead to a fractionalized conception of teaching, a conception at variance with the need of the teacher to synthesize and orchestrate a teaching whole.

Applied Science: The Latent Conception of Teaching

Beneath the two shared characteristics-the


presumed one-way flow of influence and the reliance on research findings - is a conception of teaching which can be referred to as “teaching as an applied science.” This conception of teaching is not new, as indicated by Freeman’s (1937) half-century-old explanation of the sense in which a teacher is an applied scientist:

The educator - the teacher, the supervisor, and the administrator - is correlating and employing certain materials derived from more or less scientific investigations in a variety of fields, such as psychology, biology, psychiatry, and medicine. He not only uses the materials from those fields but at times makes contributions of his own as a result of empirical observations or of controlled studies conducted in the classroom or in other school situations. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that the educator is primarily an “applied” scientist in the sense that he is concerned principally with the use of materials and concepts provided by the investigations of persons concerned with research. (p. 515)

The “father” of this and related statements on the applied science basis of teaching is E. L. Thorndike, whose faith in the power of scientific knowledge led him to proclaim the superiority of this knowledge to common sense:

A stronger objection [to scientific study] would be that the common-sense judgment of a first-rate man without these [scientific] units and scales is better than the action of the stupid or incompetent man, with them. . . . It is precisely the work of science to get good work done by those of us who are rather mediocre . We should all prefer to have for our children a stupid doctor of today, who nevertheless understood the use of antiseptics and antitoxins, than Galen or Hippocrates, though in respect to common-sense there would be no choice. (1912, p. 299)

Thorndike’s faith in the potency of scientific knowledge about the teaching process persists to this day.

The themes which run through Freeman’s and Thorndike’s expositions of the applied science conception of teaching make it easy to see why contemporary educators place so much emphasis on the one-way flow of influence and

on the application of research findings. Findings from the study of teaching are stressed because these results can convert today’s mediocre teacher into a teacher of greater expertise than Socrates, Comenius, or Herbart. In addition, the potency of scientific knowledge about teaching also justifies the one-way relationship between theory and practice. To take seriously the idea that practice could influence theory would be to grant that common sense or the accumulated wisdom of teachers might at times be equivalent or even superior to scientific knowledge.

The specific problems which I have identified with relying on research findings and with posit- ing a one-way flow of influence suggest that the conception of teaching which underlies these two assumptions needs to be reconsidered. However, the basis of the problem with the applied science conception of teaching may well reside more with our taken-for-granted view of teaching than with such specific difficulties as the existence of numerous, fragmented, and often unrelated findings or the loose connection of research findings with practice and the tendency of these findings to mask fundamental normative issues. Certainly these specific difficulties are real and need to be taken seriously, but they may be more symptoms than causes of our problem with relating research to practice. The root cause, I have come to believe, is our uncritical acceptance of the idea that teaching is best conceived of as an applied science. There- fore, I now want to consider whether there is a productive alternative to the applied science view of teaching.

Research and Practice: A Reconceptualization

There are, of course, many alternatives to the applied science conception of teaching. Teach- ing has variously been viewed as a craft, a practical art, or a fine art (Tom, 1984a). That another conception of teaching is possible is not the key issue; the question is whether some other conception of teaching is more fruitful than the applied science view. But how do we

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determine which conceptions of teaching are productive and which are unproductive?

Establishing criteria of productivity or fruit- fulness is a complex process, requiring attention both to the justification of such criteria and to the examination of the role of metaphor in education (since conceptions of teaching do tend to compare teaching to some other form of human activity). To short-circuit, at least in part, what could be a long and abstract discussion, I have decided to generate the criteria for productivity out of the difficulties which have developed with the applied science conception of teaching. That is, I will ask whether there is a conception of teaching which can escape from the assumption of one-way influence and its attendant difficulties and from the reliance on research results and the difficulties associated with that commitment. I am aware that I have charac- terized these difficulties as symptoms rather than causes of the problems that are associated with interrelating research and practice. How- ever, as well as being symptoms or indicators of problems, they can also serve - by their absence - as evidence that a particular conception of teaching apparently avoids the difficulties which have plagued the applied science conception of teaching.

Teaching as a Moral Craft

Before introducing the idea of teaching as a moral craft, I want to discuss briefly the difficulties identified with the applied science conception so we can clearly identify the criteria relevant to a more fruitful approach to teaching. These criteria seem to fall into three clusters: avoiding a fractionalized approach to teaching, reducing the loose connection between research on teaching and teaching practice, and decreas- ing the likelihood that research on teaching will mask fundamental normative issues.

As was noted above, inquiry generated by an applied science view of teaching has tended to yield findings that are narrow in scope, large in number, and generally unrelated to one another. The analytic perspective of contemporary research on teaching means that this research tends to yield a fractionalized view of

teaching. At the same time, the teacher is continually being pressed to behave in a holistic manner, that is, to weave together the complex interactions of 30 youngsters into a meaningful web or to provide an epistemological framework on which the facts, concepts, and topics of a particular subject-matter can be hung. The key to selecting a productive alternative to the applied science conception, therefore, is generating an alternative which does not lead to such a fractionalized approach to inquiry on teaching.

We have also seen how the applied science conception of teaching leads to research which only loosely connects to practice. Epistemologi- tally grounded theory, no matter how com- plete, cannot provide substantial guidance for either curriculum decision-making or other central components of the instructional process. Descriptive and explanatory material+ven that generated by detailed and insightful ethnographic work-can never by itself be the basis for deciding how to change any practice, including teaching (Cazden, 1983). The warrant for key decisions-as indicated in the discussion of PBTE-comes from other considerations, particularly the worthiness of teaching goals. Thus, as we search for an alternative conception of teaching we should look to factors beyond epistemologically grounded theory in order to create a stronger connection between research and practice.

The third difficulty associated with the applied science conception of teaching involves the tendency for this conception to mask fundamental normative issues vital to teaching practice. Such issues--even if they are recognized as part of teaching practice-are not considered to be within the arena of systematic inquiry; rather they are assumed to be personal or group dis- positions with an intuitive basis or some other nonrational grounding. Thus fundamental normative issues can be masked either by their omission or by their relegation to an inferior status. An alternative conception of teaching needs to be less likely to result in masking the normative aspect of practice than is the applied science view of teaching.

One conception of teaching which seems to


lead to a reduction in the three types of difficulties is “teaching as a moral craft.” Teaching is a craft-much like fishing and gardening are crafts-because teaching fits the definition of craft, that is, the application of knowledge and skill to attain some practical end. At the same time, teaching is more than a craft because education necessarily involves designing a curriculum to “improve” students. “It would be,” notes Peters (1965), “as much of a logical con- tradiction to say that a person had been edu- cated and yet the change was in no way desirable as it would be to say that he had been reformed and yet had made no change for the better” (p. 90). Teaching is also more than a craft because teaching involves a human relationship between people of unequal power. Since teachers do have considerable control over the lives of students and are inevitably involved in forming students in desirable ways, teaching can be said to have a moral as well as craft basis. Teaching, therefore, can be conceived of as a moral craft (Tom, 1984a).

The concurrent emphasis on the desirability of ends and on how to attain a particular worthy end means that inquiry grounded in the moral craft conception of teaching may yield findings with some relationship to one another. The “how to achieve desirable ends” component of craft inquiry is continually associated with the normative issue of what ends ought to be pursued. Inquiry grounded in the moral craft perspective, however, may yield a wide variety of findings, many of which are narrow in scope. Despite these potentially varied findings, the dual focus on craft and purpose means that the moral craft conception is more likely to lead researchers to synthetic inquiry than is the strictly epistemological focus of the applied science conception.

The moral craft conception thus has a broader scope than epistemology, as this conception is grounded in both empirical and normative considerations. As a result, the tie between research and practice may be somewhat tighter for inquiry based in the moral craft conception than is the case for the epistemologi- tally oriented inquiry derived from the applied science view of teaching. However, since the

moral basis of teaching is so controversial- both in regard to its curricular and its interper- sonal aspects-the link between research and practice is never likely to become direct, unless moral is taken to refer to a rigid ideology. Since we live in a pluralistic society, we are more likely to see the moral component of moral craft as meaning that we need to address the issue of desirable ends and a proper teacher-student relationship than we are to see the necessity for a particular orientation toward the moral basis of teaching. Moreover, craft inquiry into teaching is unlikely to produce conclusive findings, though its capacity to yield insight into the dynamics of teaching is considerable if the cognitive basis of craft is recognized (Tom, 1984a, chap. 5; pp. 140-144).

Of the three difficulties noted earlier, the tendency toward masking is the one that the moral craft conception most squarely addresses. Not only does the moral craft conception not mask the normative dimension of teaching but it actu- ally confronts this dimension directly. The moral craft metaphor makes the moral basis of teaching a central component of all systematic inquiry into teaching.

In comparison to the applied science conception of teaching, the moral craft perspective seems to encourage a less fractionalized view of teaching, to reduce the loose connection between research on teaching and teaching practice, and to decrease dramatically the possibility that research on teaching will mask fundamental normative issues. As a result, I believe that the moral craft conception of teaching marks an improvement over the applied science view. Yet I recognize that the very suggestion that teaching is a craft-let alone a moral craft- engenders widespread concern among educators who believe that any craft conception of teaching signifies a step backward from the attempt to provide a scientific basis for the practice of teaching (see, for example, Broudy, 1956; Gage, 1978; Schaefer, 1967, pp: 20-24). While I doubt that I can convince all the critics of the craft conception of teaching that such a conception is worthy of consideration, I do believe that the moral craft perspective can stimulate significant inquiry into the practice of

150 ALAN R. TOM

teaching. But what would be the characteristic form of such inquiry. 7 Just what would be learned from inquiry rooted in the moral craft conception?

Inquiry Grounded in the Moral Craft Concept

To ask what might be learned from inquiry rooted in the moral craft view of teaching is to accept an epistemological definition of the purpose of inquiry. Further, this question tends to orient inquiry toward the products rather than the processes of such inquiry. In addition, the framing of a “what is learned from the study of practice” question tends to make research and practice into a dichotomy and to acknowledge implicitly that research is to guide practice.

Empirical study is one aspect of the moral craft conception-the craft aspect-but the more basic consideration associated with this conception is the issue of desirable ends. To inquire into the moral basis of teaching is to take seriously the commonsense world of the teacher, especially the fundamental normative question of what content ought to be taught and how this decision is to be justified (Kliebard, 1977), as well as the normative issue of what student-teacher relationship ought to be estab- lished (Tom, 1984a, pp. 79-88). Within the context of answering these two fundamental issues of practice and related subissues, attention also needs to be given to the epistemological question of how to bring about the desired relationship and how to develop and implement a curriculum containing the desired content. Epis- temological considerations-the “how to” or the craft of teaching-ought always to be subsidiary to and supportive of the more fundamental normative issues of practice. Neverthe- less, coherent and defensible positions on the fundamental issues of practice are of limited value unless there is an accompanying practical pedagogy for bringing to fruition one’s conception of desirable practice. Exclusively epistemological pedagogy is rudderless while an exclusively normative pedagogy is as useful to a practitioner as is a boat in drydock to a fisher- man.

There are some examples of inquiry which

seem to attend concurrently to the moral and the craft bases of teaching. For example, Peters (1977, chap. 9) suggested that the concrete problems of teaching-many of them normative-should serve as a focal point for the study of teaching, and Berlak and Berlak (1981) have developed a dilemma framework which reveals alternative possibilities for resolving a variety of teaching issues. Both Peters and Berlak and Berlak place considerable emphasis on exploring the normative aspect of practice, but both also attend to the empirical basis of practice, particularly Berlak and Berlak, who explicitly discuss the craft basis of teaching (see Tom, 1984a, pp. 202-204, for a brief analysis of the work of Berlak and Berlak and of Peters in relation to the moral craft conception). One practitioner who concurrently addresses the moral and craft bases of teaching is Kohl (1976), who conceived of teaching as part craft and part poli- tics. More recently, Kohl (1984) extended his analysis of the craft of teaching and paid special attention to subject-matter content.

One characteristic of Kohl’s inquiry, as well as those of Peters and Berlak and Berlak, is that few prescriptions are offered. These authors focused on making the teacher aware of alternative courses of action, an approach which stres- ses the problematic basis of teaching activity. Each of the authors concentrated on helping the teacher visualize a range of options, com- prehend the considerations involved in making choices, and consider the factors related to planning how to achieve the chosen alternative. This view of teaching as selecting among alternatives and implementing the one selected suggests that teaching is seen as a decision-making activity.

Interestingly, a decision-making view of teaching is also held by at least one advocate of the applied science conception of teaching. Schaefer (1967) identified the scholar-teacher as someone “who can participate in the search for new knowledge about classroom learning” (p. 25), a quest which facilitates the teacher’s development of “intellectual tools for pedagogical analysis” (p, 26). Schaefer-as did Kohl, Peters, and Berlak and Berlak-placed more stress on inquiry into pedagogical issues than on


the codification of pedagogical knowledge and its dissemination to practitioners. The scope of inquiry for Schaefer, however, was restricted to epistemological concerns so that he was not able to address the normative basis of teaching practice.

On the other hand, scholars could ground their inquiry in the moral craft metaphor and still conduct research which is both prescriptive and denies the decision-making role of the teacher. If the desirable ends addressed by the moral basis of inquiry become commitment to a fixed set of beliefs-be it a moral majority outlook, a liberal democratic outlook, or some other ideology-then the moral craft metaphor could yield prescriptions no less rigid, and much more restrictive, than those yielded by applied science inquiry aimed at producing knowledge to be disseminated to passive practitioners. Product-oriented inquiry conducted from a moral craft perspective is even more demeaning to the status and responsibility of the teacher than is product-oriented inquiry based in the applied science perspective. The teachers in an educational setting do collectively need to com- mit themselves to a set of desirable ends, for teaching is inevitably a moral enterprise. But I take as a first premise that the ultimate responsibility for this decision ought to reside in the teachers, not in researchers, not in tradition, not in principle, not even in the community.

To propose anything else other than the teacher as the final arbiter of educational ends is to convert the teacher into an agent of socialization for some other entity. The teacher-or a group of teachers-can also be unconscious agents of socialization, should the teacher not be aware of the responsibiiity for considering thoughtfully what ends are to be attained through education. A fundamental task of the moral craft conception is to alert the teacher to the variety of ends which might be pursued. *

Moral Craft Conception: Final Thoughts

While I obviously have enthusiasm for the moral craft conception of teaching, there no doubt are other ways to stimulate scholarship which addresses both the normative and empirical aspects of teaching. Having the underlying conception of teaching phrased in a particular way is far less important than is having joint emphasis on normative and empirical inquiry, whatever the label might be. Some may believe that identifying teaching as a practical art helps avoid the manual and imitative connotations of craft, though craft learning, as I noted earlier, can be seen as a cognitive activity (Tom, 1984a, chap. 5). Teaching could, however, be equally well identified as an ethical practical art,‘if that term be needed to avoid both the “right and wrong” behavioral judgments associated with the term moral and the restrictive meanings associated with the term craft. No doubt other conceptions of teaching could also bring together the normative and empirical elements of instruction.

The scientific study of teaching also has a role to play in the moral craft perspective. Tradi- tional crafts have always been able to absorb scientific knowledge, e.g., knowledge about soil characteristics into the craft of gardening or knowledge about the pH level of water and its impact on fish into the craft of fishing. But this knowledge has no practical implications until it is integrated into a framework which guides the creative efforts of the craftsman. Similarly, scientific knowledge about teaching-for example, knowledge derived from the testing of students-can and should be employed by the moral craftsman. Such knowledge needs to be integrated into the moral craft conception and brought to bear on teaching practice in a way which is consistent with and subsidiary to this conception of teaching.

* 1 hesitate to assert so baldly the prerogatives and autonomy of the teacher. especially since the teacher in elementary and secondary school is working with immature and often vulnerable students. But the teacher needs to have considerable intellectual authority or else his role is reduced to that of being a transmitter of knowledge. skills. and values. However, the way a teacher exerts his intellectual authority must be defensible-to himself. to his colleagues. and to the larger community. Intellectual authority ought to be tempered by reflection and rationale.

152 ALAN R. TOM

Deciding what is consistent with the moral craft conception is not particularly easy. Essen- tially, the moral craft conception of teaching, as well as the conception of teaching as applied science, is a metaphor, and a metaphor provides suggestive comparisons, not conclusively estab- lished relationships. The inconclusive status of metaphoric claims occurs basically because metaphors are compact, leaving much to our imagination and to our experience. Since the comparisons suggested by a metaphor are not explicitly developed, .we must be careful to examine these potential relationships thoroughly, lest we prematurely accept their validity (Tom, 1984a, pp. 121-125). It is for this reason that I have gone into such detail about the various interpretations of the weak link between research and practice, the assumptions which these four interpretations share, and the sense in which the weak research-practice link is rooted in the applied science metaphor. I have attempted to demoristrate several ways in which the applied science conception of teaching is flawed.

The moral craft conception ought to be held up to similar scrutiny. Does this concept or metaphor for teaching practice encourage the type of inquiry which does inform practice? Is this relationship reciprocal? Is there a more productive metaphor for characterizing the phenomena of teaching practice?

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Rethinking the relationship between research and practice in teaching