Volume 71 No.1(Open Access) - 2025-03-31

【Research Paper】How Teachers Do Professional Reading–An Analysis of Question-asking in a Western Educational Classics Study Group

【研究論文】教師如何進行專業閱讀?—西方教育經典讀書會的提問分析

Author:
Fei-Ching Chen / 陳斐卿
Keyword:
scientific and technical literature, teacher professional development, teacher professional reading, teacher learning, teacher study groups, scholarly reading / 科學文獻、教師專業發展、教師專業閱讀、教師學習、教師讀書會、學術閱讀
  • Summary
  • Chinese Summary
  • Reference
  • Scholarly references
(1)Purpose: Professional reading groups constitute a key source of teacher professional development. Taking the initiative to participate in study groups has grown increasingly popular as the new curriculum guideline was launched in Taiwan in 2019. How teachers read and discuss is becoming a promising focus for research on teacher professional development. However, our understanding of how teachers read, discuss, and learn is underexplored given the prevalence of teacher study groups. This study therefore explores how teachers read professional literature. The research question for this study is twofold: What questions do teachers ask? What alternative strategies may improve their reading?(2)Main Theories or Conceptual Frameworks: This study was informed by Latour’s concept of scientific and technical literature. The text was composed of rhetoric and argument from authority. Given the technical and layered nature of literature, it is structured in layers, forming a complex array of successive defense arguments. From this perspective, the deeper teachers engage with this complex literature, shaped by conflicting arguments, the more challenging it becomes to read. In particular, this study uses the “captation” concept to understand the difficulties that teachers encountered when they are persuaded to accept ideas distant from or even contrary to their current beliefs.(3)Research Design/Methods/Participants: This study reports an ethnographic case study of a teacher study group. Participant observation was conducted during seven weekly meetings where 40 elementary and middle school teachers voluntarily participated in the discussion of Western classics in education. Thematic content analysis and sociocultural discourse analysis were conducted on all instances of teachers’ question-asking, instructor’s responses, and interview transcripts to characterize teachers’ question-asking, and identify the reading strategies used to address challenges. Triangulation and member checking are used to ensure the reliability and validity of this study, respectively.(4)Research Findings or Conclusions: The analyses identified four reading characteristics among teachers: 1) fixating on specific terminologies or sentences, 2) speculating based on vague clues, 3) verifying ideas with hypothetical examples, and 4) questioning the feasibilities and idea implementation. In addition, improved comprehension can be achieved via: 1) familiarity with the argumentative genre of Western classics, and 2) interpretation based more firmly on the author’s argument rather than the readers’ personal experiences. In particular, teachers need to understand that “all the examples moved from a betterknown statement to a lesser-known one; all were using a less easily disputable claim to start or to stop discussion on a statement easier to dispute” (Latour, 1986). In other words, if teachers resonate with the beginning part of the text, they are likely to misinterpret the texts.(5)Theoretical or Practical Insights/Contributions/Recommendations: This study sheds new light on teachers’ professional reading by adopting Latour’s concept of scientific and technical literature. It is found that teachers do encounter difficulties in professional or scholarly reading despite the common assumption that teachers are experts in reading comprehension and delivering knowledge. The finding suggests that teacher learning emphasize two aspects: 1) differentiating technical literature from general literature, and 2) prioritizing the author’s arguments over readers’ personal experiences. Suggestions for scaffolding professional reading for teacher study groups are also discussed.
(1)研究目的:專業閱讀是教師專業發展的一個重要途徑。晚近因應108課綱的增能趨勢,許多教師團體組成讀書會研讀學術專書,並面臨到閱讀上的挑戰,但是,揆諸相關文獻,對於教師在讀書會究竟如何學習?會發生什麼問題?並未有深入的探討。換言之,相較於教師如何教學,教師如何學習並未受到足夠的重視。本文因而對一個教師讀書會團體進行民族誌研究。研究問題有二:一、學員提問所揭露之思維特徵為何?二、精進專業閱讀的可能性為何?(2)主要理論或概念架構:專業閱讀的文本多半涉及學術文獻,是一種不同的文類。本研究因而借用科學社會學家Latour對科學文獻(scientific literature)的文本特徵分析,指出學術知識的形成過程中,爭論(argument)和修辭學(rhetoric)是常見的手段,文本經過作者層層的精緻編織,以使讀者相信其所寫為事實而不加懷疑。從這樣的視角,教師在閱讀西方經典時,可能因文本的精緻編織而難以辨明這些寫作手段,致遭逢不能有效掌握作者論點的困難。本研究藉助科學文獻的此一文本特徵,用於分析教師提問所揭露的一般閱讀慣性,以及轉化既有慣性的可能做法。(3)研究設計/方法/對象:本研究以民族誌研究一個教師讀書會團體。研究者參與40位中小學教師歷經七週共計42小時的定期聚會,透過讀書會對話錄音檔、讀書會閱讀之學術文獻、個別訪談以及參與觀察等四種方法蒐集資料,採用主題內容分析及社會文化的言談分析兩種方法分析資料,藉由教師於閱讀西方教育經典書籍後提出的疑問,探索其閱讀專業文獻的困難所在,以及精進這項能力的可能方向。本研究提升信、效度的方法有二:信度方面,透過多重資料之三角檢證;效度方面,透過讀書會成員的參與者回饋。(4)研究發現或結論:不同於過去文獻對專業閱讀偏重「不克」與「不為」二種面向,本研究深入第二種「不能」面向,揭露教師閱讀西方專業書籍面臨的困難。發現有二:一、教師提問思維的四種特徵,分別是「卡在特定一句話/一個字詞」、「線索不明之下的猜測理解」、「用舉例尋求確認」,以及「詢問可行性/具體做法」;二、精進專業閱讀的可能性為:學習熟悉經典的論述修辭,並沿著作者論述的脈絡納入讀者自身經驗加以理解,如此,方能有效捕捉經典的論點與立場,精準掌握學術文獻所欲呈現的新知識。(5)理論或實務創見/貢獻/建議:本研究藉助Latour主張「科學文獻有其特定意圖」的文本特徵此一概念,對晚近專業閱讀相關研究提出新見解。一般相信長年傳授知識為主的教師,閱讀是其勝任的工作,但本研究透過民族誌的觀察與分析,透析教師在專業閱讀面向的學習並非如此。在「專業文本」方面,教師宜解構學術文獻的組成過程與文本特徵,在「閱讀策略」方面,教師宜調整慣有的閱讀策略,並拓展特別有助於專業閱讀所需的策略,如此,專業閱讀對於教師專業發展的幫助將更為明顯。
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