How do teachers reason about their practice? Representing the epistemic nature of teachers’ practical knowledge

Khalil Gholami, Jukka Husu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

68 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The present study focused on the epistemology of teachers’ practical knowledge by addressing the following research question: how do teachers attempt to reason about their practices and their practical knowledge? The results indicated that teachers supported their practical knowledge claims using the “practical argument”. Within this conceptual framework, they relied on contextual grounds that call for the fact that something should or should not be “done”, rather than something is “true” or “false”. Contextual grounds, then, were found to be backed up by two significant types of warrants: moral ethos, and “what works” notion. Depending on what kind warrants they used, teachers’ practical knowledge was interpreted to be based on two different epistemic statuses: “practicable” knowledge and “praxial” knowledge.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1520-1529
Number of pages10
JournalTeaching and Teacher Education
Volume26
Issue number8
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Keywords

  • Teachers’ thinking
  • Teachers’ knowledge
  • Teacher practical knowledge
  • Practical argument
  • Epistemology

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