De sectie als eenheid : samenwerking en professionaliteitsopvattingen van docenten in het voortgezet onderwijs

Abstract

The main topic of the study is collaboration between teachers within departments in secondary education. The study consists of three entities: a study of literature, an empirical component and a part in which a comparison between the findings of this study and of the study of literature is made. In the last part consequences of the results of this study are discussed from the perspective of implementing educational change, student learning outcomes, professional development of teachers and school-de-velopment. Some of the issues discussed in the third part are mentioned in this summary. The search for information about forms and contents of collaboration between teachers and for explanations for the existence or absence of collaboration in the first part resulted in the formulation of research questions for the second, empirical part. The study of literature revealed that little is known about collaboration between tea-chers in departments in secondary education. Because of the limited knowledge of this type of collaboration, an exploratory research design was chosen for. This design consists of a multiple case study (Yin, 1994). The multiple case study was based on different data, including interviews, observations, analyses of documents and questionnaires, collected in three secondary schools. In this study, only schools in which all streams are taught (>broad school-communities=) were selected. In these schools all subjects are taught and departments are quite large. That is interesting for this study, because the number of teachers and them teaching different streams might influence collaboration. The case studies consisted of four departments in two schools, and three departments in one school. In each department four teachers were interviewed. In most of the departments an observation of a staff-meeting was conducted and the minutes of the departmental staff-meetings held in the year of this research, were analysed. At each school other documents, like the school-schedule, a (architectural) plan of the school and information for teachers, students and parents were studied and an interview with the schoolleader was held. The collected data were analysed by coding segments of texts and using matrices (Miles & Huberman, 1994). The reliability of the codes, measured by Cohen=s Kappa, was acceptable. Besides these case studies, a (limited) survey was conducted at the schools. All the tea-chers working at these schools were asked to fill out one questionnaire about collaboration and one questionnaire about perceptions of professionality. From each questionnaire a total of 202 questionnaires was returned by teachers and used in the analysis. The alpha-coefficients of the scales used in the questionnaires showed that all scales (in total 34), except two, were reliable (all above a.70). The two scales which were not reliable were excluded from analysis. Results of the empirical study In this study the main research question was: What forms of collaboration exist between teachers within departments in secondary education in the Netherlands and how can differences in collaboration between departments be accounted for? The results of the empirical study showed that different forms and contents of collaboration exist within and between schools. In this study an elaboration of the forms of collaboration, as distinguished by Little (1990c), was used. Furthermore a distinction was made between formal and informal collaboration. Collaboration can be quite simple, like talking and making agreements, or more advanced, like helping and joint work. Little pointed out that simpler forms of collaboration take place when teachers are not dependent on each other. More complex forms of collaboration suggest a great deal of interdependence. Simpler forms of collaboration were found more often in schools than more complex forms of collaboration. Little suggested that the forms of collaboration show a cumulative pattern. More complex forms suggest the existence of simpler forms. The results of this study showed that this is not the case. Some of the more complex forms of collaboration were practised more often than the simpler forms. Concerning formal collaboration, making agreements occured more often than teachers talking with each other. As for informal collaboration, making agreements was less relevant than giving help to each other. Regarding further differences in collaboration, it is worth mentioning that most collaboration concerned the subject matter, followed by testing. Instruction received the least attention, both within formal and informal collaboration. Teaching strategies were experienced as belonging to the characteristics of an individual teacher and the situation in the classroom. Therefore teachers judged collaboration concerning teaching strategies as less useful (Fullan, 1991, 1993). There were some differences between formal and informal collaboration. Formal collaboration was mostly concerned with topics that are not related directly to teaching. Topics like scheduling and buying course materials, as well as topics which have to be discussed in answering questions of the schoolleader were the core topics in staff-meetings. Informal collaboration concerned topics related to teaching. Because of this difference between formal and informal collaboration, teachers mentioned they find informal collaboration more satisfactory and worthwhile than formal collaboration. Teachers wanted to collaborate with each other if the collaboration was experienced as useful for their teaching. Informal collaboration provided this need, while formal collaboration was seen as a burden. From this perspective it is not surprising that most collaboration is informal, rather than formal. The reasons for teachers to collaborate can differ. One of the reasons, as mentioned above, was that teachers wanted to collaborate if it contributed to the teaching-process. Apart from this motive, teachers collaborated because of the following reasons: For reasons of efficiency Teachers decided to collaborate if it saved time. To enhance the co-ordination within the department both from an organisational point of view as a pedagogical point of view To make sure that all students learn the same topics within a school year, teachers co-ordinated the contents and the testing of their lessons. From a pedagogical point of view this co-ordination was valued by teachers as being more >honest= towards students. To enhance the political status of the department within the school Teachers who taught subjects which have a low status, like physical education, collaborated from a micro-political point of view. By collaborating they could manifest themselves as a departmental unit which had to be taken seriously by the schoolleader. To enhance the professional growth and supply socio-emotional support of the teacher Through collaboration teachers could learn from each other and grow professionally. Besides learning from each other teachers felt socio-emotionally supported by telling each other what had happened in their classrooms. The fact that teachers collaborated because of different reasons, explained why collaboration failed to show a cumulative pattern. The motives for starting colla-boration can differ between the different forms of collaboration. Schoolleaders wanted teachers to collaborate for different reasons. They saw collaboration as essential for development of the school as a whole and for implementing educational change. They seemed to like collaboration from the perspective of the school as a whole, which is concerned with both the present and the future. Teachers on the other hand seemed to like collaboration more from a classroom point of view, which is directed at the present. It is advisable for policy makers at both national, regional, and school-level to take into account the different points of view. It seems wise for them to keep an open mind for the needs teachers seem to have when they collaborate with each other. The starting point for school-development can be found in the professional development, which was the most important reason why teachers collaborate. Teachers wanted to collaborate because it can enhance their teaching and accordingly, they can grow professionally. Most collaboration existed between teachers who taught the same year and level (e.g. a teacher who taught English in 4 havo collaborated with a colleague who also taught English in 4 havo). The collaboration was directly aimed at working in the classroom. Teachers teaching the same year and level can ask each other for advice, which can be used directly. There were differences in collaboration within departments. The most intensive collaboration occured between teachers who taught the lower years. During the research period teachers started with the implementation of an educational change within the lower years, the >basisvorming=. This educational change is concerned with creating equal opportunities for students, delaying the choices for a further (educational) career and enhancing the quality of teaching students (Karstanje, 1996). It is possible that this change has extended the collaboration between teachers (c.f. Verschuren, 1997). It is worth mentioning that teachers saw this collaboration as temporary. The collaboration was started because teachers wanted to make course materials which they needed to work according to the demands of basisvorming. Once these materials were made, collaboration was not judged needed anymore. Another explanation for the fact that most collaboration existed in the lower years, was the abundance of possibilities to collaborate because there are more classes from the same year and grade in the first years than in the higher years of secondary education. Collaboration which is not centred at a specific year and level, was not the issue. Collaboration concerned with vertical issues did not exist. Long-term educational planning was not found in any department (cf. Friebel, 1994). Teachers mentioned that the use of course materials did not make vertical co-ordination necessary. Because there were differences in collaboration within departments and because of the fact that there was no vertical collaboration within departments, it can be concluded that departments are not strong entities. Because the department cannot be seen as an unit, this can be a problem for implementing educational changes which demand changes in the teaching process as a whole. These changes were demanded from schools in order to implement governmental changes like >basisvorming= and >tweede fase=. The variance of motives for teachers to participate in collaboration was an important reason for the existence of different forms of collaboration. In earlier studies it was suggested that characteristics of the subject which is taught, influenced the amount and form of collaboration (Witziers & Van Vilsteren, 1990; Stodolsky & Grossman, 1992, 1995; Witziers, 1992; Stodolsky, 1993, 1995; Friebel, 1994; Grossman & Stodolsky, 1995). In this study that assumption was studied by answering the following research question: What is the relationship between teachers' perceptions of professionality and the forms of collaboration between teachers in departments? The way teachers perceive characteristics of the subject constituted one component of the way teachers perceive their professionality. Their perception influenced the collaboration. If teachers perceived their subjectknowledge as subjectknowledge with conflict over the definition (a changing subjectknowledge), they were more likely to collaborate than when they had a clearly defined and static view of the subjectknowledge they taught. This confirmed the findings of earlier research, but an important difference needs to be mentioned. In earlier research the characteristics of subjectknowledge were seen as characteristics of the subjectknowledge itself. This research showed that that is not the case. Teachers who teach the same subject can have different ideas about the characteristics. The characteristics themselves were not fixed. The way teachers perceived the characteristics influenced collaboration, contrary to the characteristics of the subjectknowledge itself. The other component of the teachers= perceptions of professionality concerned the willingness of teachers to share their autonomy. The way teachers perceived their autonomy, did not influence collaboration between teachers. Apart from the different motives teachers had to start collaboration and their divergent views of professionality, other explanations for differences in collaboration were found. These explanations answered another research question: What is the relationship between conditions of the workplace and different forms of collaboration of teachers within the departments? The conditions of the workplace were important for collaboration. They can facilitate the possibility for collaboration. In this study the subsequent conditions were found to influence collaboration: Time either increased or decreased collaboration because teachers started collaboration with an efficiency point of view. Time increased formal collaboration because it was found difficult to make an appointment for a staff-meeting, especially within large departments. The physical distance between classrooms If the classrooms were situated far apart from each other informal collaboration was difficult. Schoolleadership A schoolleader can influence collaboration by using cultural or structural inter-ventions. Cultural interventions, like explicitly stating that collaboration was important, seemed to influence collaboration more than structural interventions, like scheduling staff-meetings. The role of the departmental leader The role of the departmental leader was not quite clear. It appeared that he can make use of the same interventions as the schoolleader, if his position is clear. A problem for departmental leaders was that they were >primus inter pares= and were not trained to act as educational leaders. The organisation of the school The influence of the organisation of the school seemed to be peripheral compared to 261 influences within the department. Although there were differences between departments, there was an interesting difference between schools, which seemed to be influenced by the organisation of the school. At the Metro, a school which embodies most characteristics of a learning organisation (Marx, 1975, Petri, 1995), like a shared responsibility for school policy (empowered teachers), teachers helped each other more and conducted more joint work than in the departments of other schools. Educational change like basisvorming Teachers mentioned the basisvorming as an incentive for more collaboration. Most of this collaboration was concerned with making new course materials for teaching according to the notions of basisvorming. Social relations between teachers Especially the social relations between teachers seemed to influence collaboration a great deal. Teachers only wanted to collaborate with teachers they liked and felt safe with. The social relations between teachers can also decrease the possibility for collaboration. This was the case if teachers prefered good social relations above professional relations. Even if teachers disagreed about the goals of education, collaboration existed if the social ties were strong enough. This answered the final research question: To what extent does goal-consensus exist between teachers in the departments and what is the relationship between goal-consensus and collaboration within departments? If teachers strived for similar goals in their teaching, it facilitated collaboration. As mentioned above the relevance of goal-consensus for collaboration can be diminished if strong social relationships exist between teachers in the departments.?