Teacher Expertise and Professional Vision: Examining Knowledge-Based Reasoning of Pre-Service Teachers, In-Service Teachers, and School Principals

Abstract

Classroom professional vision is a teaching skill that refers to the ability of teachers to rapidly notice information in class and engage in knowledge-based reasoning about the noticed information. Knowledge-based reasoning includes three interrelated processes: description, explanation, and prediction. The present study aimed to examine how pre-service teachers, in-service teachers, and school principals differed in these three reasoning processes after viewing classroom photographs with varying presentation time and interactional complexity. A 3 × 2 × 4 factorial design was used. Teacher expertise (pre-service teachers vs. in-service teachers vs. school principals) was a between-group factor, presentation time (1 vs. 3 s) and complexity (teacher vs. dyad vs. small group vs. whole class) were within-group factors. Analysis of verbal reports suggested that in-service teachers and school principals used significantly more episodic knowledge, content knowledge, and pedagogical content knowledge in their reasoning than pre-service teachers did. Explanations with mathematical content knowledge were more frequent for in-service teachers, for shorter rather than longer presentation times, and for photographs showing the teacher only. Explanations with pedagogical content knowledge were more frequent for in-service teachers, for shorter rather than longer presentation times, and for photographs showing a small group. Across time and complexity, school principals verbalized less frequently what they noticed. In-service teachers and school principals verbalized significantly more self-monitoring and more predictions of teacher actions than pre-service teachers. The study findings contribute to the growing body of evidence on classroom professional vision, teacher noticing, and visual teacher expertise, and provide initial evidence on expert teachers' frequent metacognitive self-monitoring.