Dulling the Senses: Research in Teacher Education

Abstract

We will argue that a particular style of research dominates in teacher education.The paradigm concept can be useful in thinking about the problem of teacher education research. A paradigm can be thought of as a matrix of beliefs, patterns of conduct, and bodies of knowledge. These elements interact to give shape and definition to the conduct of inquiry. Paradigm also suggests an act of affiliation to the community of scholars. This affiliation involves both affective as well as cognitive dimensions. As individuals participate in a research community, the &dquo;scientific&dquo; view of the world does not remain detached from the individual. It becomes part of how individuals see, feel, think, and talk about events. (See Kuhn, 1970, andHeyl, 1975, for more complete discussions of research paradigms.) One might ask, &dquo;What does the nature of paradigms have to do with teacher education research?&dquo; People know what they are doing and the problem is to get on with the task.The response is the problem, we believe, and highlights the importance of paradigm as a way of orienting a discussion of conventional inquiry. First, we will argue that a particular style of research dominates in teacher education. That style of research maintains certain commitments to &dquo;science,&dquo; has specific modes of analysis, and uses distinct concepts to guide discourse.Second, the dominant paradigm has certain limitations for educational inquiry and for understanding the phenomena of teacher education. It crystalizes the conduct of research to make inquiry a self-sustaining activity that has lost its generative power and critical stance. A consequence is a conservative orientation to the tasks of professional preparation and a distortion of the phenomena under study. In considering the implications and consequences of conventional practices, some alternative suggestions for guiding inquiry will be offered. Dominant Research ParadigmAn examination of the research literature in teacher education reveals that the empirical-analytic paradigm is the dominant perspective. This paradigm contains a set of interrelated assumptions about the social world and has implications for what researchers should do to understand that world.At its most thoughtful level, this paradigm can be characterized by the following: (1) the purpose of inquiry is to discover a deductive system of propositions (scientific laws) which can be used to predict and explain human behavior in a manner similar to that believed to occur in the physical sciences; (2) human behavior is assumed to have characteristics which exist independent of and external to the intentions and motives of the people involved in the action; and (3) the researcher's task is to assume a position of distance from the studied phenomena to guarantee neutrality and to control subjectivity. This empirical-analytic paradigm is expressed in teacher education research in three interrelated questions about &dquo;effects.&dquo;Training to Use Specific Teaching BehaviorsThe first major group of studies...

Improving Educational Research Through the Development of Educational Paradigms

“…(pp. 39-40) Unfortunately, those educational scientists who have attempted to adapt Kuhn's paradigmatic epistemology to education have failed to recognize the need to modify Kuhn's conception of science to fit the unique character of educational science (e.g., see Doyle, 1978;Gage, 1977;Popkewitz et al, 1979;Zeichner, 1983). Although we applaud the efforts of these researchers and concur with their suggestion that Kuhn's paradigmatic epistemology is as applicable to educational science as it is to the physical sciences, we believe that Kuhn's model for how the paradigmatic epistemology is carried out in the physical sciences must be revised before it can be transposed onto educational science.…”

“…Several educational scholars have suggested that educational research is ineffective because educational scientists do not understand the nature of scientific inquiry (Popkewitz, Tabachnick, & Zeichner, 1979). In this paper we describe an approach to educational science that is based on an analysis of the nature of science and which we believe has the potential to improve the effectiveness of educational science and practice.…”

Teacher Effectiveness in Adult Education

“…This narrowness of concentration on specific outcomes has also been criticized recently in analyses of the prevalent process-product paradigm in educational research (see Darling-Hammond, Wise, & Pease, 1983;Doyle, 1977Doyle, , 1979Popkewitz, Tabachnik, & Zeichner, 1979;Soar, 1983;Zumwalt, 1982) as well as in the more general discussions of both paradigm shifts (e.g., Tuthill & Ashton, 1983;Zeichner, 1983) and inquiry in fields other than education (e.g., Kuhn, 1970;McGuire & Tyler, 1984).…”

The Socialization of CPEP Teachers: Implications for Administration

“…Although fIeld-based inst~uction is gene~ally assumed to be neces5a~y and useful (Howey et al, 1978) Investigations conducted on the traditional field experiences of pre-service teachers conclude that student teachers are socialized into the profession by the patterns of school practice (Johnston & Ryan, 1983), practice a limited range of instructional behaviors (Doyle, 1977;Copeland, 1980), and become involved with learning which is not commonly supported by both schools and universities (PopkewItz, Tabachnick, & Zeichner, 1979).…”

“…They rely on information and 34 interpretations from others to help them "make sense" of the experIences (Van Maanen & ScheIn, 1979;LouIs, 1980), they recall their past experIences in dealing with surprises (Louis, 1980) (Greenberg, 1983;Hall & Hord, 1981 The process by which an individual is inducted into the teaching profession must be viewed as a process of socialization (Popkewltz, 1979;Zeichner. 1980a).…”