Frontline Learning Research

Student self-regulated learning in teacher professional vision: Results from combining student self-reports, teacher ratings, and mobile eye tracking in the high school classroom

Kateryna Horlenko — 2024-06-27

Teacher professional vision as a concept is gaining importance in research on teaching, and recently models for studying teacher professional vision and student self-regulated learning (SRL) have been proposed. There are interview and video intervention studies investigating teacher professional vision for SRL, but no real-life classroom research so far. This study investigated the role of student SRL behaviour, as it was reported by students themselves and teachers, in teacher attention distribution as part of teacher professional vision. Ten teachers and their 158 students at high school level in Lithuania took part in the research. The first step of the study resulted in identifying four student SRL-profiles, which differed based on student level of SRL and the extent to which teacher and student assessments coincided: mixed lower-regulated, mixed higher-regulated, systematic lower-regulated, systematic higher-regulated. The profiles demonstrated only a partial overlap in teacher and student judgement of student SRL. The second step of the study explored whether scores of students’ SRL from student and teacher reports were related to teachers’ distribution of visual attention in one lesson. The results showed that only one teacher rating scale of student information-seeking behaviour had a slight correlation with teacher attention. The results imply rather bottom-up trends in teacher attention to students in the classroom when it comes to SRL. Besides, the study results highlight the not directly observable nature of SRL processes and imply a difficulty for teachers to assess student SRL.

Developing Scenarios for Exploring Teacher Agency in Universities: A Multimethod Study

Max Kusters — 2024-06-13

Lecturers who are actively engaged in shaping their teaching and teaching practices demonstrate agency. Teacher agency has increasingly been described as a key factor in educational development at universities. Lecturers are expected to innovatively develop courses and continuously improve their teaching practices to respond to, for example, student needs and labor market demands. In this multimethod study, we examined the process of developing and validating scenarios for measuring teacher agency in universities. We conducted four studies to create 23 scenarios that capture the complex nature of teacher agency. First, we interviewed university lecturers to identify bumpy moments in their teaching practice, and so found scenarios based on real-life experiences. Then, we employed two expert panels, to evaluate and refine the scenarios, which enhanced their validity. Finally, we used a pilot study to standardize the data collection procedures. Our multimethod study has established reliability by triangulating methods and researchers, involving multiple stakeholders, and providing detailed descriptions of the research process. This project holds implications for research and practice. The scenarios can be used in professional academic development programs for the collection of research data and to promote self-reflection, peer consultation activities, and professional growth and agency among university lecturers.

Fostering students’ systems thinking through futures education

Iina Hyyppä — 2024-06-14

In an era of worsening environmental crises, students may not perceive themselves as able to impact and change the inevitably upcoming futures. Accordingly, a common goal of educational systems has been to increase students' agency and sensemaking in a complex world. Simultaneously, students are facing unprecedented levels of futures anxiety, and educational institutions undervalue the importance of future thinking. To take on a constructive approach on futures thinking, we examine how students’ systems thinking skills develop during a futures education course in which they write their own visions of a hopeful future. By looking at the thematic spheres of society, nature, and technology, we analyse how students develop systemic understandings of the complex system that is the context of the study: the city of the future. The study examines how students’ written futures visions develop throughout the course, and how those developments indicate development in systems thinking. The results show that the futures education course allowed students to improve their understandings of the interconnectedness of the topics they raised, fostering more holistic and active understandings of the futures, here shown through the multidimensional development of systems thinking. Students developed a deeper understanding of the interrelationships of society, nature, and technology, and developed understandings of the pathways to change and the agency and action needed to achieve their futures.