Policy mediated through subject matter contexts: Antecedents of subject-bound differences in teachers’ perceptions of collaboration across subjects

Abstract

The main purpose of a current Norwegian educational policy is to stimulate secondary learners’ basic skills. This study focuses on writing skills in schools’ content areas. Teachers’ collaborative activities across school subjects are central components of this endeavour: teachers will discuss with colleagues how they can better provide feedback on the students’ written assignments. Providing feedback on students writing has traditionally been stressed more in some school subjects than in others. We examined the relationships between the teachers’ subject-related context and their personal benefits from collaboration across subjects. We also examined the relationship between the attitudes towards the national education policy and personal benefits of teacher collaboration on feedback. Furthermore, we explored the teachers’ self-efficacy, which is related to the perceived benefits of collaboration across subjects. Regression analyses were performed. A key finding is that the teachers’ subject contexts—their subject-specific beliefs—are related to the personal benefits of teacher collaboration. This means that subject matter contexts might interact with the policy. Further, we found that the more positive teachers in the subjects Norwegian or foreign languages were of the policy, the greater were the benefits in collaboration across subjects. For other teacher groups, it was different. Social studies teachers had the highest personal benefits from collaboration across subjects and the highest policy attitudes, while teachers in Norwegian or foreign languages had the highest self-efficacy. The group of other teachers (science and maths teachers) had low self-efficacy, low policy attitudes, and low personal benefits of collaboration. The implications for school practice, policy design, and further research are discussed.